Pris! 


273 
é 


The9 


TIREUR EU 


é 





EN OF PRIN, 
SM D \ 
MAT 25 1926” 









* 
Vie 


Be ett 


Pn 
is 





WA 


AA) 
i ih 
LAN 


“, 


4 
it 


’ 
r 





RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


L 


‘Every man should begin by making himself beautiful and divine 
if he would behold the Beautiful and the Divine.” 


PLoTINUS (Enneads, I. vi. 9). 


LE den 
— 


Co he Y CF Ph n> 
ON AVN Hilly y . 











Y 

Le Pan MATE 
me A Pad 
ok 


\ 


CAL SEM 


RU YSBROE 


HAE 
ADMIRABLE 


544 


A.” WAUTIER D’AYGALLIERS 





Al odowy weare and | à 
Like shodows deport . 


AUTHORISED TRANSLATION 
BY 


FRED ROTHWELL 


LONDON & TORONTO 
LS VES DENT es SONS) LED: 
NEW YORK ESP. DUDTON ECO: 
1925 


A Pil TEE MIEL ENTRER VER 
Ruysbroeck L’ Admirable, 
| by A. Wautier d’Aygalliers, 
was first published in Paris 
by Perrin et Cie in 1923 





Ail rights reserved 


PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 


TO MY WIFE 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/ruysoroeckadmira0Owaut 


TRANSLATOR’S NOTE 


THE author of Ruysbroeck the Admirable is Professor of the 
History of Philosophy at the Faculté de Théologie pro- 
testante de Paris. 

He is also pasteur of the Foyer de Ame, Église réformée 
évangélique libérale, which continues in Paris—and spreads 
throughout France—the tradition of emancipated Protes- 
tantism, with which are connected the names of Athanase 
Coquerel fils and Jean Reville, as well as that of Charles 
Wagner whose books “eunesse, Vaillance and La Vie 
Simple have exercised so profound an influence upon the 
present generation. M. Wautier d’Aygalliers is the son-in- 
law of Charles Wagner, whom he succeeded in 1918. 

A pupil of François Picavet, late Professor of the Collège 
de France, our author has made a special study of the 
questions which deal with the influence of Hellenism upon 
Christianity. 

That Neoplatonism constituted a sort of under-current 
to speculative mysticism through which it feeds the whole 
of modern philosophy, including Bergsonism, is the general 
idea of this work on the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic. 
Regarding it, Edouard Schuré, the famous author of The 
Great Initiates, uses the following words: “Livre admirable 
de solidité et de clarté, de profondeur et d’élévation.” 

In addition to numerous sermons our author has pub- 
lished an Etude critique des Sources de la Vie de Ruysbroeck 
(1909) and Les Sources du Récit de la Passion (1920). 

vil 


vill RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


As the text of the French volume was the thesis presented 
by M. Wautier d’Aygalliers for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy of the University of Paris, various notes and a 
critical investigation into the sources of information have, 
with his approval, been omitted from this English edition. 


Ruysbroeck the Admirable was crowned by the 4 cadémte 
francaise in 1925, winning the Prix M arcelin-Guérin, which 
is devoted to works of history of serious social value and 
moral purpose. 


pee 


TABLE OR CONTENDS 


PAGE 
PREFACE . ‘ 4 ; à A + i : : ’ . XVI 
INTRODUCTION. THE MEDIÆVAL PHILOSOPHIES AND HISTORY | Pte ak, 5 

I. Method and object of history . AUX.» à 


The history of philosophy and its connections with history, D. xx: 
Method; history as science and as art, p. xxii; The object of history 
is education, p. xxiii, 


II. The Middle Ages not a closed historical period . : ee € 


The Middle Ages is a philological term extended to a historical period, 
p. xvi; This application is arbitrary, p. xviii; The Middle Ages is the 
modern age in its infancy, p. xix. 


III. The intellectual life of the Middle Ages . à .tXxxI 


In the history of philosophy we cannot suppress ten ébitiiies ey specu- 
lation, p. xxxi; The Middle Ages, permeated with Hellenism, continues 
the civilisation of antiquity, p. xxxii; It inaugurates modern philosophy, 
p. XXxiii. 


IV. Neoplatonism, the controlling force of the Middle Ages à .XXXI ii 


Even morethan Aristotle, Plotinus influenced the Middle Ages, p. xxxiv; 
The two main intellectual paths start from Saint Augustine and 
Scotus Erigena, p. xxxv; Thus we may rightly regard the Middle Ages 
as beginning in the third century, p. xxxvi; The stages of the 
philosophical filiation of the Middle Ages, p. xxxvii. 


V. Ruysbroeck’s justification of the preponderance of Neoplatonism xxxvii 


Plan and method of our work, p. xxxvii; Above all, it is an 
investigation into the origins of Ruysbroeck’s thought, p. xxxviii; 
How it is advisable to study them, p xl.; Gratitude, p. xlii. 


Pins be Pals 
HISTORICAL INFLUENCES AND THE LIFE OF RUYSBROECK 


CHAPTER I 


SOCIETY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY AND THE DEMOCRATIC REVIVAL— 


The democratic revolution takes place simultaneously on the social, 
the political and the religious ground, p. 3. 


I. The social question à : . 4 
Related to the oligarchical regime. real AT foreottan: 0,4; 
Distinct separation between classes, the supremacy of money, p. 4; 
Guilds and trades, majores and minores, p. 5; Blend of mysticism and 
social aspirations, p. 8 


1x 


x RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


II. External politics . : ’ - ; : à . : 

Philippe le Bel’s entry into Flanders provokes revolution, p. 9; 

Battle of Courtrai, p. 10; Its revolutionary repercussions in Brussels, 

p. 10; Fresh rebellion in Flanders, p. 11; Alliance of trades with Van 

Artevelde, p. 13; The democrats overcome at Brussels, p. 13; Trades 

defeated in Flanders, p. 14; The reign of Wenceslas completes the 
crushing of the Brabantine artisans, p. 14. 


III. Causes of the democratic failure < \ ; / À é 
Absence of a national consciousness, p. 14; Isolation of the towns, 
p. 15; Ignorance of the masses, p. 16; Moral dissociation discernible 

in art and literature, p. 17; General corruption, p. 10. 


CHAPTER II 


THE CHURCH IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY— 


I. The principle of spiritual authority shattered . : : À 

Abasement of Boniface VIII., p. 22; The policy of the Popes of Avi- 

gnon, p. 23; Conflict with Ludwig of Bavaria and the spirituals, p. 23; 
The Great Schism; the Flemish are Urbanists, p. 24. 


II. Moral condition of the clergy . ; k 


Papal fiscality and its consequences, p. 24; Simony, p. 25; Depraved 
life of the clergy, p. 26; Corruption of morals, p. 27. 


III. Aspirations towards reform 


Action of the mendicant orders, p. 28; Aspirations towards interior 
reform, p. 30; Influence of heterodox sécts, p. 31. 


CHAPTER III 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY— 
I. Their origins . : ; 


The rights of the ideal, p. 33; Eschatological speculations, p. 34 
Influence of Scotus Erigena, p. 35. 

_§1. The “ Eternal Gospel ” of Joachim de Flore, p. 35; Its distor- 
tion by the Fratricelli, p. 36; The Liber introductorius, p. 37; 
The Cathari, p. 37. 

§ 2. The philosophical expression of the ‘‘Eternal Gospel’? move- 
ment, p. 38; David de Dinant, Amaury de Bène, p. 38. 

§ 3. The disciples of Amaury go beyond their master, p. 39; 
Growing corruption of the doctrine, p. 39; The Amalrician doctrine 
becomes the New Spirit, p. 40; Associations of Beghards, vehicle 
of the doctrine, p. 41. 


IT. The sect of the Free Spirit : 


General characteristics: a coherent system with anarchist tendencies, 
p. 42; The Porretistes, p. 44; The testimony of Ruysbroeck: quietism, 
Pp. 45; pantheism, p. 46; moral corruption, p. 47; rejection of all 
authority, p. 47; Diffusion of the sect favoured by the survivals of 
Manichæism: Tanchelm and Guillaume Cornelis, p. 48. 


. 
? 


III. The Flagellants . : + ‘ ; : : ‘ ° 
Their origin, p. 49; Their manifestations, p. 50; Measures of coercion, 
Pp. 52. 


IV. The Dancers. 4 ; ‘ ; ‘ : ‘ : : 
Frankly rebels, p. 53; Short duration of these manifestations, p. 54. 


PAGE 


14 


22 


24 


28 


ao 


42 


49 


54 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER IV 


THE YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK— 
I. His native village . : ; 


Description of the vane p. ae State of Peasants) KA aa Countey 
habits and morals, p. 58. 


i) 


IT. Early education . ÿ 
Father unknown, p. 58; AO adi penhe: Pp. ae Vatious none 

p. 60. 
III. In Brussels . 1 ‘ 


Ruysbroeck lives with his EPS enr Hinoinert: p. ee The Latin 
schools, p. 64; Silence of biographers regarding Ruysbroeck’s edu- 
cation, p. 67. 

IV. Ordination of Ruysbroeck à 


His mother retires to Brussels, p. 68; She dies ‘shortly Ye La 
p. 69; Ruysbroeck is ordained priest, p. 70. 


CHAPTER V 


BLOEMARDINNE— 
I. Conversion of Canon Hinckaert 
The converted canon founds a small mystic aseoniation ot 933 Davis 
ment of the religious life of Ruysbroeck, p. 74. 
II. Ruysbroeck’s ministry at Brussels 


Social and religious movements, p. 75; The hereon of Bloemardinne, 
p. 76; Who is she? p. 76; The mystery of her personality remains 
unsolved, DAT 


III. Early writings of Ruysbroeck . | : À . 


Ruysbroeck publicly opposes Biotihardiine: p. 81; Seely animosity, 
p. 82; The Kingdom of God’s Lovers, p. 83: The Adornment of the 
Spiritual Marriage, p. 84; The Sparkling Stone, p. 85; The Book of 
the Four Tempiations, p. 86; The Treatise of the Christian Faith, 

86. 


Pp. 


CHAPTER VI 


CoNVERSION— 


Hidden crisis in Ruysbroeck’s life, p. 88; The importance of The 
Spiritual Tabernacle in our understanding of this crisis, p. 89. 


I. The Spiritual Tabernacle . ‘ : 
Analysis, p. 89; Lack of bamipgenelty, p. hey eve liste AE 
tions, p. 92. 
II. Promptings of the soul 


III. Conversion . + . > à 
Interior influences, p. 96; Back of beton to PNR D. 07: 
The three friends resolve to withdraw from the world, p. 98; Assign- 

ment of Groenendael by the duke of Brabant, p. 99. 


PAGE 


56 


58 


62 


68 


72 


75 


80 


89 


93 
96 


xi RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


CHAPTER VII 


GROENENDAEL (LE VAU-VERT)— 
I. The vale of Groenendael and the forest of Soignes 


II. First installation 
Erection of a chapel, p. 104; Nations Ronnie D. ros! The ire 
adopt the Rule of Saint Augustine, p. 106. 


III. Monastic life of Ruysbroeck . 3 ; 


Work and contemplation, p. 107; His VOTE p. 108; ‘His arenes 
p. 109; His obedience, p. 109; His temptations, Pp. T10: Spiritual 
favours, p. III. 


IV. Literary activity 


How Ruysbroeck rot EE RLE Rouet tae eee, p. II4; The 
Seven Cloisters, p. 116; The Mirror of Eternal Salvation, p. 116; The 
Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love, p. 117. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE Forest MonKs— 
Absence of any present trace, p. 118; First aspect of the monastery, 
p. 110. 
I. The Rule of Saint Augustine 


By it we can reconstitute life in the monastery, p. 120; Origin of the 
Rule, p. 121; Its essential prescriptions, p. 122. 


II. Monastery life 


Material resources, p.124; Manual PRES D 125: The PS an converst, 
p. 125; Hierarchy in the monastery, p. 126; À monk’s daily occupations, 
p. 127; The infirmary, p. 128; The refectory, p. 129; Clothing, p. 129; 
The reputation of Groenendael, p. 130. 


III. The inmates of the monastery. 


Guillaume Jordaens, p. 131; Jean Sisvene LA 132; Tan de ao verl 
p. 132; Jean d’Afflighem, surnamed the bonus cocus, p. 133. 


CHAPTER IX 


Last YEARS— 


I. Increasing reputation of Ruysbroeck’s sanctity 
Numerous visits, p. 138; Words of Ruysbroeck, p. 130. 


II. Canclaer or Tauler 


Did the German mystic visit rnenendaers p. Pt Catt! He 
Surius of the text of Pomerius, p. 142; Strong presumptions in favour 
of Tauler, p. 143. 


III. Visits of Gérard de Groote 


IV. The last years of Ruysbroeck’s life . . ‘ 

The Book of Supreme Truth, p. 148; The Tage Battie, p. 149; 

Premonitory signs of the end, p. 150; Death, p. 152; Beatification of 
Ruysbroeck, p. 153. 


PAGE 


IOI 


104 


107 


113 


120 


124 


131 


138 


140 


143 
148 


CONTENTS 


SECOND PART 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES 


CHAPTER X 


EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 
I. Method fe 


II. The drama of the Soul 


1. The Soul dwelling in primitive se ras p- Et 
§ 1. God and the divine hypostases, p. 160. 
§ 2. Creation, p. 166. 
§ 3. Man, p. 172. 


2. The Soul’s decline, p. 174. 


§1. The Fall, p. 174. 
§ 2. The work of Christ, p. 177. 


3. The return to unity, p. 181. 
§1. The three paths, p. 181. 
§ 2. The active life, p. 183. 
§ 3. The interior life, p. 186. 
§ 4. The contemplative life, p. 192. 


III. The Church and the sacraments 


CHAPTER XI 


SCHOLASTICISM— 


Two stages in the formation of Ruysbroeck’s thought, p. 202; Rule to 
follow in determining the influence of the masters, p. 203. 


I. The intellectual movement and Scholasticism . ; 
The problem of the relations between reason and faith, p. 204; The 
University of Paris, p. 205; A knowledge of Aristotle’s writings deter- 
mines various streams of thought, p. 206; Albertus Magnus and Saint 
Thomas adopt a midway position between Augustinism and Aristo- 
telianism, p. 207; Greatness of their work, p. 208; There is no opposition 
between Scholasticism and speculative mysticism, p. 208; Ruysbroeck’s 
relations with Scholasticism, p. 209. 


II. The great Scholastics of the thirteenth century, RS of RES 
broeck : à 


§1. The tien of the Atelier D210? Ro DEC as vete 
sides with the realists, p. 210. 


§ 2. The influence of Albertus Magnus on the entire scientific part of 
Ruysbroeck’s work, p. 211; Cosmology, p. 212; Psychology, p. 212; 
Astrology, p. 212. 

§ 3. Influence of Thomas Aquinas, theory of creation, p. 215; Theory 
of ideas and problem of the multiple, p. 216; The soul, p. 217; Psy- 
chology, p. 218; Grace, p. 220; The beatific vision, p. 221; On all these 
points Ruysbroeck depends on Saint Thomas, p. 222. 

§ 4. Influence of Saint Bonaventura, p. 224; Ruysbroeck inspired by 


the Itinerarium mentis, p. 224; Proofs of detail, p. 225; The synterests, 
p. 226. 


X111 


198 


210 


X1V 


RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


SCHOLASTICISM—continued 


§ 5. Ruysbroeck does not slavishly follow Scholasticism. He has made 
a choice, p. 227; How are we to explain the influence of Albertus 
Magnus and Saint Thomas on Ruysbroeck? p. 227; Possibility of 
Ruysbroeck having visited Cologne, p. 228; From the fourteenth 
century onwards, the Summa of Saint Thomas replaces the Sentences 
of Peter Lombard in instruction, p. 230. 


III. Mystical current at the heart of Scholasticism, represented by 


Saint Bernard . : à È à à À . : 

Close relationship between Saint Bernard and Ruysbroeck, p. 230; 
Subordination of intellectualism and contemplation to practical life, 
p. 230; Return to the Scriptures, p. 231; Nature as inspirer, p. 232; The 
three considerations of Saint Bernard and the three paths of Ruys- 
broeck, p. 233; Servants, hirelings, and sons, p. 234; The threefold 
coming of Christ, p. 235; Identical imagery in Saint Bernard and Ruys- 
broeck, p. 236. 


IV. The school of Saint-Victor , À é ; 


$ 1. Hugues de Saint-Victor, p.237; Ruysbroeck has borrowed a page 
of his on the pre-existence of things, p. 237; Analogy between The 
Tabernacle and the two De Arca of Hugues, p. 238. 

§ 2. Richard de Saint-Victor, p. 238; Influence of the Benjamin major 
on the theory of spiritual degrees, p. 238; Conclusion, p. 240. 


CHAPTER XII 


N EOPLATONISM— 


I. Scholasticism is permeated with Neoplatonism . ; 


Eclecticism of the Scholastics, p. 241; The Aristotle of Scholasticism is 
a Neoplatonist, p. 242; Writings erroneously attributed to Aristotle, 
p. 242; Through Scholasticism, Ruysbroeck is already in contact with 
Neoplatonism, p. 243. 


II. Plotinus and the third century - ¢ 


The development of Christian theology cannot be explained apart from 
Neoplatonism, p. 244; Necessity of being acquainted with the third 
century, out of which was born the Middle Ages, p. 245; General sense 
of depression, p. 245; Political vicissitudes, p. 245; Predominance of 
religious philosophy, p. 246; Aspirations towards monotheism, p. 246; 
Neopythagoreans, p. 247; Gnosticism, p. 247; Religions of the mysteries, 
p. 248; All these beliefs express a painful state of pessimism, p. 248; 
Plotinus aims at the restoration of human destiny, p. 249; Salvation, 
according to Plotinus, lies in obedience to the divine order, p. 250; 
Sources of the thought of Plotinus, p. 251; Hindu philosophical current, 
p. 252; Independent philosophical position of Plotinus, p. 253; Cause of 
the influence of Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages, p. 253; Similar cir- 
cumstances exist during the Middle Ages and the third century, p. 254; 
In the intellectual reorganisation, Scotus Erigena secures the pre- 
dominance of Neoplatonism, p. 254. 


III. Neoplatonism in Ruysbroeck through the intermediary of Saint 


Augustine . k ; 


§ r. The Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine, p. 256; His doctrine of the 
absolute simplicity of God, p. 260; Intelligible truth, p. 261; Return 
to deity, p. 262; The conception of evil regarded as a privation, p. 263; 
Conclusion, p. 264. 

§ 2. The Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine in relation to Ruysbroeck, 
p. 265; The One God, p. 265; The non-reality of evil, p. 265; Idea of the 
Fall, p. 266; Into the theory of ecstasy Ruysbroeck introduces develop- 
ments from alien sources, p. 266. 


PAGE 


230 


236 


241 


244 


255 


CONTENTS XV 


NEOPLATONISM—continued PAGE 
IV. Neoplatonism through the intermediary of Scotus Erigena . 1007 


§1. The work of Proclus is one vast synthesis, p. 267; Modifications 
introduced by Proclus into the philosophy of Plotinus, p. 267; His 
theory of the triads governs that of the return to the One, p.268; 
Ecstasy, p. 268. 


$2. The Pseudo-Dionysius: after the closing of the school of Athens, 
Neoplatonism is compelled to represent itself as Christian, p. 269; The 
Pseudo-Dionysius is a genuine disciple of Proclus, p. 270; He defines 
the whole of Christian mysticism, p. 271; Ruysbroeck had read the 
works of the Pseudo-Dionysius, p. 272; Mystical science; the two paths, 
theory of creation, p. 272; The three degrees of purification, Di tea; 
Similarity of doctrine and terminology i in the works of Dionysius and of 
Ruysbroeck, p. 274; Pantheistic tendency in Ruysbroeck, p. 275. 


V. Pantheistic Neoplatonism : “1270 


§ xz. Scotus Erigena, Ruysbroeck Lit no Hindus RE PAS of him, 
p.276; His philosophy popularised by the Brothers of the Free Spirit, 
p. 276; Scotus Erigena assimilates Oriental emanationism through the 
Pseudo- -Dionysius, p. 277; Influence of his book De Divisione Naturae 
on Scholasticism and mysticism, p. 277; Orthodoxy of Scotus Erigena, 
p. 278; Pantheistic premises contained in the system of Scotus Erigena 
and subsequently developed by the Amalricians, p. 279; It was pro- 
bably through the Beghards and the Brothers of the Free Spirit that 
Ruysbroeck unconsciously came under the influence of Scotus Erigena, 
p. 280; Opinion of Gerson, p. 282; Behind identical words, Ruys- 
broeck sees another reality, p. 282. 


§ 2. Direct influence of Meister Eckhart, p. 282; Ruysbroeck borrows 
from him what agrees with his own conceptions, p. 283; Analogies of 
doctrine, p. 284; Ruysbroeck’s method of tempering certain affirmations 
of Eckhart, p. 284. 


CHAPTER XIII 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE OF RUYSBROECK— 


I. Originality of Ruysbroeck : 290 

Ruysbroeck reorganises the elements he borrows in accordance with 
particular laws, p. 291; His thought is a progressive creation, p. 292; 
Importance of history in following out this development, p. 293; Ruys- 
broeck’s independence as regards Scholasticism and Neoplatonism, 
p. 294; His orthodoxy, p. 296; Arrangement of his material, p. 298; 
Distinction between soul and body, p. 298; Importance of metaphor in 
philosophical language, p. 298; Ruysbroeck was the man of the hour, 
p. 299; He revives the compromise concluded in the third century 
between the civilisation of antiquity and Christianity, p. 299; His 
practical morality prevents Ruysbroeck from adopting quietism, p. 300; 
One’s belief depends on one’s worth, p. 301. 


II. Influence of Ruysbroeck : ; ; ‘ : ‘1401 


His work brought about a genuine moral via, p. 302; Divergence 
from Meister Eckhart: whereas the mysticism of Eckhart gradually 
strips itself of its Christian elements, that of Ruysbroeck culminates in 
true godliness, p. 304; Ruysbroeck is the inspirer of the associations of 
the Vie Commune, p. 304; The influence of the monastery of Windes- 
heim, p. 306; Ruysbroeck cannot be regarded as a precursor of the 
Reformation, p. 306; The Theologia Germanica, in which Ruysbroeck’s 
influence is seen, but slightly affected the thought of Luther, p. 307; 
Ruysbroeck continues a thorough reform of the Church, p. 308. 


XVI 


’ 


RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE OF RUYSBROECK—continued 


III. Ruysbroeck and the modern spirit 


Philosophical value of speculative mysticism, p. 309; It has formulated 
some of the principles of modern philosophy, p. 309; Modern doctrines 
founded on intuition are connected with speculative mysticism, p. 310; 
Descartes’ principles originate in Christian Neoplatonism, p. 310; 
Similarity of method and doctrine, p. 311; Methodical doubt, p. 312; 
Innate ideas, p. 313; Thought as independent substance, p. 314; Radical 
distinction between body and soul, p. 314; Knowledge by intuition, 

315. 
Descartes was connected with mystical speculation through the Jesuits 
at La Flèche and the Pères de l’Oratoire in Paris, p. 316; His stay in 
Holland where the influence of Ruysbroeck remained a ‘living force, 


Pp. 317. 


IV. The work of FORTE and the EST trend of contemporary 


thought. . à : 
Depreciation of science as the par va bt FA PA p. 319; The 
psychological school and anti-intellectualism, p. 319; Mental life ex- 
tends beyond brain activity, p. 320; Henri Bergson and his theory of 
mind: the return to the immediate, p. 320; The philosophy of becoming, 
founded on biology, p. 321; Survival after death, p. 322; Practical 
value of contemporary philosophy, p. 323; The spiritual necessities of 
the present hour, p. 324. 


PAGE 
309 


318 


PREFACE 


WE are living in serious times. 

As is the case in all periods of transition, we are con- 
fronted with the great question of life and death, of the 
spirit and the flesh. . 

Disenchanted and embittered, incapable for the most 
part of discerning the right and essential directions with- 
out which life becomes a failure, present-day humanity, 
between the past from which it expects nothing and the 
future which it dreads, has come to a halt, like a traveller 
iInvthe might..." . 

Many have wrapped themselves about in their wretched- 
ness as in a shroud: what though death does come, if, to 
their mind, it is to end everything! 

We are wretched, not because we have shut ourselves 
up in cloisters or subjected the flesh to the harsh discipline 
of hermit or recluse, but because we have profaned life, 
because we did not see it as duty, not as enjoyment. 

We have quenched the spirit. And now we find ourselves 
on roads full of bogs and quagmires, some of us wringing 
our hands, others in a state of besotted stupefaction, all 
incurably sad. 

Any voice that makes itself heard in this darkness and 
solitude, any voice in which a higher humanity speaks, is 
a friendly and welcome voice. 

It is such a voice that we wish to sound forth, the voice 
of an old monk of the Middle Ages, utterly forgotten except 
by a few ardent souls, a few scholars, who believe that 
the past, when questioned by history, may still throw light 
on the present. 


A monk! many will say in accents of mingled pity and 
B XVII 


xvii RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


scorn. Yes, but one beneath whose rough garment beat the 
heart of a man, one who found himself in conditions almost 
identical with our own. 

To those who suffered and wandered astray he spoke 
words of life. In an age sunk in the lowest depths of material- 
ism, he succeeded in awakening the divinely human soul, 
immortal daughter of God, slumbering in its tomb. 

It may be that the solution he propounded is so especially 
adapted to his own far-away times that we cannot pretend 
to apply it, as it stands, to our own. For there are forms that 
die, as in a garden die the stalks of the previous season. 

The root, however, is still alive, and the problem which, 
at various periods of human history, inspires so many 
different solutions is fundamentally the same: man con- 
fronted with the mystery of his destiny, man seeking, behind 
the shifting curtain of his days, a Will that is good and a 
Thought that will direct him aright. 

Do not, therefore, say of the following pages: “This 
doctrine has no longer anything to do with us.” Every- 
thing has to do with you, since you no longer have any- 
thing—or scarcely anything—though you must live a 
true and noble life, in accordance with the dignity of 
your humanity. 

Do not say it is nothing to you, that bold motto which 
Ruysbroeck gave as a viaticum to two students of Paris, 
logic-proud and rich maybe in many things, poor only in 
hope and in good-will: Vos estis tam sancti sicut vultis.” 

Pick up the phrase, as you would a crumb of good bread, 
without taking umbrage at the grave and erudite apparel in 
which it is attired. 

For myself, whose rôle is that of a modest transmitter, 
I say in the words of Olivétan, when issuing his translation 
of the Bible: | 

“Je may point honte, comme la veusve évangélique, 
d’avoir apporté devant vos yeuls mes deux petites quadrines 
en valeur d’une maille, qui est toute ma substance. Aulcuns 
viendront après qui pourront mieulx.” 


INTRODUCTION 


THE MEDIÆVAL PHILOSOPHIES AND HISTORY 
I 


THE present work on Ruysbroeck the Admirable is neither 
a book of history nor one of philosophy: it comes under 
that well-defined domain of scholarship which we call the 
history of philosophy. 

By this we mean that, while retaining its own distinctive 
character, it nevertheless keeps in close contact with history, 
properly so called, as well as with philosophy. 

Though tributary to those two scientific provinces, the 
history of philosophy is subject to the same rules of research, 
of criticism and exposition. It applies to ideas, though it 
cannot lose interest in events, which determine and condi- 
tion ideas. Besides, what value could it give to these ideas 
did it not previously secure to itself the resources of psy- 
chology, of dialectics, and of metaphysics? 

And so the history of philosophy, as regards its special 
purpose, harmonises with the clearly-marked predilection 
manifested by our times for historical reconstitutions. Indeed, 
no age has worked so diligently in keeping track with a 
humanity that has disappeared and in applying to the 
present the lessons of the past. 

This century, so generous in spite of all its troubles, 
could not resign itself to leave so many heroes sunk in 
oblivion, without a soul to lament, or a poet to sing their 
praises. In applying this filial piety, it has shown such 
sturdy integrity as will remain one of its finest character- 
istics. Perseverance in effort, foresight in research, a scru- 


pulous conscientiousness in the use of documents: such is 
xix 


ax RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


a brief summary of the progress effected in the domain 
of history. 

It is not simply the machinery that has been improved 
by the creation of special schools in which real laboratories 
have helpfully supplied the various disciplines connected 
with history. Suffice it to mention in France the Ecole des 
Chartes and the Ecole pratique des Hautes-Etudes. Progress, 
however, is still—and mainly—connected with the working 
out of a method that has definite rules and with the con- 
ception of the educational rôle of history. 

All the same, historians have been found to depreciate 
this extremely delicate task. “Alas, what mountains of 
dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones, does assiduous Pedantry 
dig up from the Past Time, and name it History, and 
Philosophy of History.” 1 

It is no doubt right that the historian should be aware 
of the limits imposed on his task. Turning towards the past, 
he knows beforehand, as Gabriel Monod says, that “historical 
reality is never known to us in the absolute and precise truth 
of its endless complexity.” 

The exact sense of our limitations, however, is a different 
thing from the scepticism of the toiler overwhelmed by his 
impotence. Still, this form of scepticism, like all others, is an 
injustice. Is not the workman greater than his tools? And 
though the historian works under more unpromising condi- 
tions than, for instance, a chemist, he is able nevertheless, 
through a series of minute approximations, gradually to 
lessen the risks of error and almost grasp facts themselves in 
all their throbbing life. 

Thus the question of method makes itself imperiously 
felt at the very outset of every historical undertaking. 

History is made up from documents: manuscripts, 
inscriptions, or figured documents such as the works of 
architecture, of painting and sculpture, objects of every 
kind: arms, costumes, coins, etc. But even in the most 
favourable cases, discovered documents are always nothing 

* Carlyle, Past and Present, book II, chapter ii. 


INTRODUCTION XXI 


more than ruins, the flotsam and jetsam left from the great 
shipwreck of time. 

Of all scientific workers, then, the historian, at first 
sight, is the most imperfectly equipped, for his vision of 
facts is indirect and fragmentary. He would thus be reduced 
to nothing more than the barren preserver of the vast necro- 
polises of bygone ages, did not precise methods enable him 
to go back from traces to facts. 

The collected material should first be interpreted, weeded 
out and verified by a series of critical processes: criticism 
regarding scholarship, origin, and interpretation. Then it is 
advisable to group together this material into cadres that 
press home the reality we would grasp, a reality which still 
exists only in the mind. 

In such groupings there are always gaps, all the greater 
owing to the paucity of documents. Then reasoning 
comes in. Trusting to the law of analogies which places past 
humanity in the same category as the present, the historian 
goes back from deduction to deduction right to the time he 
has undertaken to reconstruct. The exactness of his recon- 
struction is in direct ratio to the certainty and foresight of 
reasoned processes. Thus he connects facts with facts, links 
together the separate rings in order to obtain a continuous 
outlook upon events. He cannot grasp the truth all at once. 
He rises, however, from one level to another, like a traveller 
climbing the side of a mountain, until he reaches the top, 
whence his glance takes in as a whole the world in which 
men move and have their being. 

Here science should precede art. To collect testimonies, 
to test them, to correct them if they have been distorted by 
passion or apologetics: such is the task of the scholar—an 
arduous and thankless as well as prolonged task, though one 
that constitutes the very condition of success. Unless he has 
lived long in the atmosphere of his origins, the historian 
is building on sand, and his labours, neither solid nor con- 
scientious, are soon proved to be valueless. Nothing but 
prolonged contact with the springs of knowledge gives that 


xxii RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


vivid illumination in which lines and features stand clearly 
outlined and the framework is fittingly arranged. This en- 
thralling work, which makes a historian the amazed witness 
of a veritable renaissance, is one that he both suffers from 
and enjoys alone. Like the stones that form the foundation 
of a structure, it does not appear in broad daylight, though 
constituting the solid bottom which is to sustain the edifice. 

Of itself alone, however, the work of criticism would be 
inadequate. This work has even been called idle play: 1gnavia 
critica. To documents—those mute witnesses—we shall find 
it necessary to give contemporary speech. Art follows on 
science in breathing upon these dry bones, collecting events 
in striking epitomes, dashing off a silhouette with a pencil- 
stroke, and setting up the harmonious balance of the parts 
in the wide stretch of the ensemble. The historian must now 
be able to forget his own period, to assimilate the soul of 
past ages, and to make up his mind—as against the protest- 
ing scholar—to sacrifice in order to acquire that conciseness 
which alone contains the one thing needed. 

Now, in this dual task, what is the historian’s claim? 
Erudition for its own sake is egoism. No longer does history, 
as Augustin Thierry vigorously expresses it, “interest itself 
in the fortunes of princes, it now deals with the destinies of 
men who lived and suffered like ourselves.” 

Crime-proving articles, whether the deeds of Philippe- 
Auguste or the altar-screen representing the Elders adoring 
the Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, are now expressed 
in terms of the human soul. For it is the soul that interests 
us; its griefs and hopes are our own. Time has not parcelled 
it out into arbitrary categories. It is ome, “in such fashion 
that the whole sequence of men should be regarded as the 
same man ever subsisting and continually learning,” as 
Pascal says. This soul, like the Sleeping Beauty, lies slum- 
bering in documents: it is for the historian to wake it with 
a kiss. For history is indeed a work of love. 

_ What have we to do with these dusty archives, these 
broken columns which daily crumble away, these worn- 


INTRODUCTION XXill 


out costumes, unless we bring back life? “‘ History,” says 
Michelet, “has nothing to do with these heaps of stones. 
History deals with the soul, original thought, fruitful initia- 
tive, the heroism of action and creation. It teaches that a 
soul weighs infinitely more than a kingdom, an empire, a 
state system—sometimes more than the human race itself.” 

Herein lies the greatness of history, its distinctive objec- 
tive. History is a morale. To know what the human soul has 
believed, thought and suffered during the various ages of 
mankind is a source of grave joys, a task that carries one 
far. This is the supreme educational value of history. 

We are sometimes surprised to find how far men, even 
quite intelligent, may fall short of sane judgment in their 
appreciation of contemporary tendencies and facts. On 
inquiring into the reason, we almost invariably discover 
that it is based on a total or a partial ignorance of history. 
This lack contains the germ of all pride and vanity as well 
as of the gravest deviations of thought. The man who has 
not instinctively grasped the inextricable interlinking of 
generation with generation, and the indefatigable renewal 
of life, cannot really understand his own age, in which sur- 
vivals of the past and novelties of the present are both to 
be found. History is perhaps the only school in which toler- 
ance and justice are taught, the only one that forbids 
absolute judgments, because it knows that every sentence 
is subject to perpetual revision. 

In this pathetic drama which unrolls itself as the ages 
pass, the historian assuredly finds a place. He has his sym- 
pathies and his antipathies. Still, while attempting to create 
a truth that satisfies him, he does not regard as false what 
he has been unable to appropriate from the vast stores of 
the past. He knows that the gods die, as do the stars. Still, 
he does not forget that these cold thoughts, whose vitality 
has run out, were once living and invigorating. And he loves 
them for their past accomplishments, though himself removed 
from them by all the distance of his more recent acquisitions. 

In these pacific heights, everything becomes passionately 


xxiv RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


interesting and concurs most effectively to the utility attn- 
buted to history: the understanding of the present. Incessu 
patuit dea. The human soul has passed by, and its regal out- 
line has stamped itself on the dust of vanished centuries. 

The few pages of a well-directed monograph on some 
forgotten character may shed illuminating brilliance. The 
deciphering of an inscription on a stone in the desert may 
serve as a link to bind together the broken chain of a tradition. 

Does this mean that all reconstituted facts are of like 
importance? No, indeed. If history is to be a morale, it must 
effect a sorting-out process. It expresses itself by distin- 
guishing good from evil. It either brands or exalts, without 
taking sides, simply inviting man to learn from repeated 
demonstrations that show forth the beauty of effort, the 
persistence of hope, and the greatness of human misery. 
It dashes to the ground the pride of conquerors and goes 
seeking a pensive monk in some forgotten monastery. It 
attaches less importance to the victor’s blood-stained laurel 
wreath than to the last cry of the Crucified on an arid 
eminence of Judaea. Thus does it ordain and compute, com- 
pare and proportion, restore to their right place the haughty 
ones whose stormy personality filled the entire stage of their 
period, whilst shedding radiance upon the only individuals 
worthy of the unanimous acclaim of mankind. 

And so history prefers to dwell upon such characters as 
are truly great, whether in work, in sanctity, or in martyr- 
dom. “The only thing that makes history worth writing,” 
says H. de la Gorce, “‘is the spectacle of a soul superior to 
the peril that confronts it.” Doubtless crowds also are 
great, whether worked up by some strong ferment, or, as 
they quietly pass their lives in common, unconsciously 
moving forward beneath the urge of thousands of obscure 
and—one might think—useless lives. But the hero, the great 
man, the saint: these constitute the very voice of this con- 
fusion, this agitation. In such a soul all the stirrings of the 
crowd find an echo. They give an expression to the uncon- 
scious thought, a will to men’s aspirations. Here essentially 


INTRODUCTION XXV 


is the historical individual, the one through whom history 
becomes both instruction and creation. 

For it is the living alone who propagate life. By setting 
the great man or the saint in strong relief, history reveals 
the splendid possibilities slumbering within each of them. 
The great man is a guarantee that any man may acquire 
the same energy and capacity that made up his own great- 
ness. The magic wand of a master is capable of arousing 
these slumbering powers. And it is this wand that the 
historian wields. 


IT 


If such, indeed, be the object of history: “to teach man 
to man,” we can understand the extraordinary development 
of certain branches almost entirely neglected a century or 
two ago: the history of ideas, for instance, or the history 
of philosophy. 

If man’s greatness lies mainly in the effort he makes to 
understand himself and his destiny, then religious history 
should arouse more justifiable interest than any other phase 
of general history. 

This consideration has not been a matter of indifference 
in the choice of our subject. In undertaking to study the 
life and work of a fourteenth-century monk, Ruysbroeck the 
Admirable, whose very name is scarcely known in France, 
it has been our purpose to revive a moment of the religious 
evolution of mankind, on the eve of one of the greatest 
spiritual transformations recorded in history. For this man 
apprehends and expands, by his thought, the aspirations of 
his generation; he also enables us, in his person, to repudiate 
the unjustifiable discredit still hanging over the Middle Ages. 

We are accustomed to give this name to the period 
extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 
476, or even from the separation of the Eastern Empire and 
the Western Empire in 395, to the capture of Constantinople 


xxvi RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


in 1453. But can life be so easily circumscribed? Like the 
ocean waves, it passes over the frail chronological barriers 
whereby man opposes its fury, and covers with its smooth 
even surface lands whose confines have been too care- 
fully fixed. 

The very term Middle Ages implies an intermediate 
period. This intermediate stage, however, can be justified 
only from the philological point of view. 

The aetas media marks one phase of the development of 
the Latin tongue. It is the epoch when Latin is no longer 
the noble classical language which, up to the reign of Con- 
stantine the Great, was the vehicle of ancient thought, and 
when, gradually permeated with Germanic idioms, it had 
not yet been transformed to the point of retaining only the 
traces of its ancient nobility (¢nfima latinitas). The human- 
ists, who flattered themselves upon having resurrected 
elegant latinity, came to blend the aetas media and the 
aetas infima into one single philological period; between the 
past glory and the restored splendour the language was 
enveloped in a zone of shadows. 

But this division, arbitrary in the case of language, was 
extended by the humanists to history itself. The favourable 
reception of this preconceived idea gave birth to a veritable 
historical distortion. 

If, according to the humanists, the Middle Ages consti- 
tutes a period of opposition to the great classical civilisation 
in the two forms it has assumed—the Greco-Roman anti- 
quity and the Renaissance—it was natural to regard the 
period as one bristling with error of every kind. Illumination 
was monopolised by Rome and Athens, and, after a pro- 
longed eclipse, a radiant dawn began to gild the domes of 
the Renaissance. The pride of life is reborn in pagan art 
and literature; mankind shakes off its wrappings and comes 
out of its long lethargy. 

What could the night bring forth? Fear, nightmares, 
crimes. Is not night still the symbol of ignorance? Hence 
that sombre phrase which Voltaire so imprudently coined. 


INTRODUCTION XXVII 


Speaking of the “temps grossiers qu’on nomme le moyen 
âge,” the sceptical philosopher of Ferney in all probability 
gave expression to his scorn of Christianity by a systematic 
depreciation of the Middle Ages. The historian who pene- 
trates into the Middle Ages, he wrote, “is like a traveller 
who, on leaving some proud city, finds himself in a wilder- 
ness covered with brambles.” Thus was credit gained for 
legends which have not withstood the critical investigations 
of the nineteenth century: the repulsive filth of the Middle 
Ages, the baths of blood, the jus primae noctis of libidinous 
lords, the intellectual lethargy lasting ten centuries, etc. 
Historians like Michelet and Taine vied with each other in 
circulating formulas which continued to spread such fore- 
gone conclusions. Michelet is fond of speaking of “‘la gigan- 
tesque moisissure,” of “la nuit de mille ans.” Taine, though 
brilliantly acknowledging how deeply the modern world was 
indebted to the Middle Ages, occasionally forgets his own 
arguments and regards this period as nothing but a “fosse 
noire,” “une époque maladive et détraquée.” 

It might be easy to summon arguments, to bring forward 
incontrovertible authorities in favour of such a picture. Nor 
is it to no purpose that the sluggish blood of the Barbarians 
runs in the veins of an almost utterly transformed humanity. 
It is true that morals were coarse, passions violent, poverty 
and misery widespread. This was an age of shocks and colli- 
sions, of strong clashing forces, in which soul and flesh vie 
with each other, and the latter only too often obtains un- 
doubted mastery. Still, are we impartial in applying to 
different times a common standard of measurement, in 
judging with our own contemporary mentality things which 
were then widely tolerated? There can be no just comparison 
between dissimilar terms. And it would be equally easy to 
give chapter and verse for a contrary generalisation, alto- 
gether on the bright side, though quite as unfair as the other. 

Indeed the times were barbarous, though the barbarity 
was wholly permeated with idealism, through which the 
mastery of the spirit was slowly but surely making itself felt. 


xxvil RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Strict historical methods have been needed to give 
historians a more correct outlook upon medieval times. 
Manifestly the Middle Ages was above all else creative, 
the matrix which was to shape the whole of our modern 
civilisation. Stupendous evocation of a world thought to be 
dead, a world which, owing to the deciphering of a great 
number of charters and the publication of a host of mono- 
graphs, shakes itself free of the dust of ages! We see the 
awakening not only of the individual but of the national 
consciousness. When the Roman eagles which hitherto had 
guaranteed the imposing unity of the ancient world were 
conquered, patriotism becomes a reality, fragile perhaps, 
though destined to become consolidated. There are heard 
the first feeble stammerings of tongues which are still our 
own. Ancestral brutality is compelled to recognise external 
authority, whose sway extends from lord to peasant. A great 
process of domestication is then carried on by the Church, 
and the iron discipline it exercises over the Western world 
right on to the twelfth century—a discipline particularly 
severe upon princes—alone prevents this world from perish- 
ing in anarchy. In the councils we see the first faint outlines 
of parliamentary life, wherein the decisions of a group may 
find expression; the corporative franchises of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries have their origin in these well- 
filled assemblies, dominated by ideals of order and good- 
will. The vanquished and the oppressed acquire new rights. 
To all comes a revelation of the moral, no less than material, 
necessity for work. The undisciplined energies of the people 
are directed into methodical occupations. And, sloughing off 
the thick layer of slime which northern torrents had deposited 
upon the Gallic soil, we see the world burst into flower: the 
first farm and the first seriptorium are decisive pledges of a 
reparative future. 

While the material task is of necessity the first in order 
of time, it is speedily followed by a wonderful intellectual 
activity. Compilations are made of the ancient acquisitions 
of the human race, fragments of pagan literature and science, 


INTRODUCTION XXIX 


patristic literature. Then, under the direction of Charlemagne 
and his collaborators, we see the faint outlines of a con- 
temporary science and theology. 

The Roman Church, which suggested the idea of calm 
majesty, of firmly established power, undergoes a gradual 
transformation. The solid architecture befits the age of the 
famous nineteenth-century controversies stoutly based on 
arguments from which mysticism is almost wholly absent. 
These were the days of Scotus Erigena and Hincmar, of 
Gerbert and Fulbert, of Bérenger and Lanfranc. The early 
Gothic churches coincide with contemplative poetry, which 
imbues with hitherto unknown sweetness the intellectualism 
of the doctors. There is a desire to attain to God, but thought 
must be firmly buttressed before venturing forth. This dual 
movement or impulse, which appears both in architecture 
and in speculation, may be perceived in the entire line of 
great thinkers up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: 
Guillaume de Champeaux, Saint Bernard and Abélard, his 
opponent, the great Victorins on to Albertus Magnus and 
Saint Thomas, and the mystic school which crowns the 
Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. 

It is scarcely possible to form any idea of the intellectual 
progress which extends throughout six centuries, produces 
veritable encyclopedias and evolves thinkers whose powerful 
originality in certain directions has never been surpassed, 
any more than has the Sainte-Chapelle, the Divina Commedia, 
or the Adoration of the Lamb. 

After this, can we still afirm that the Middle Ages was 
a period of barrenness, of sombre savagery? 

In a true concatenation of the ages, the Renaissance, 
with which the modern world is generally linked up, far 
from being a triumphant resurrection from death, is nothing 
but the magnificent culmination of a lengthy process, the 
flowering of a venerable tree. The old ancestor, however, 
has been forgotten, the slow uprising of the sap, and the 
very root which had to seek its sustenance in the land where 
Jesus was born. 


xxx RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


If mention of an intermediary is to be made, it is rather 
to the Renaissance that the terms should be applied; for 
what are the ideas that have survived, in the patrimony 
bequeathed to us? Have glory and voluptuousness remained 
the end of life? Have we maintained the principle of Ger- 
manic right: cujus regio bujus religio? Have we not preferred 
democratic regimes and social solidarity to royal absolutism? 
And where are to be found the germs of emancipation, of 
internal reform and social progress, if not in the Middle Ages, 
and more particularly in the fourteenth century? 

Again, if the predominance of spiritual over material 
interests has been firmly established in history, when did 
the Christian soul utter a finer chant than in the /mitation 
of Christ: “And what have we to do with genus and 
species? ... Let all the learned hold their peace . . . speak 
Thou alone unto me”?! At what period has there been 
found such passionate interest in the life of the spirit? The 
cry of Italian students when their professors entered the 
lecture-hall: ‘Tell us of the soul, tell us of the soul!” is not 
a solitary cry; it spreads over an entire period. 

By reason of its generous efforts and accomplishments, 
its aspirations and that broad spirit which attempted to 
combine in one imposing synthesis Christianity, Neoplaton- 
ism, Aristotelianism and Arabic philosophy, because of its 
disinterestedness and enthusiasm, the Middle Ages cleared 
the paths along which we are still travelling. 

It constitutes the modern age in its infancy, at a time 
when the flesh rebels against the constraint of the spirit. 
And, in the glad return of man to the independent years of 
his childhood, we may rightly see the reason why our own 
generation eagerly devotes itself to the study of medieval 
times. 

1 Book I. chapter iii. 


INTRODUCTION XXXi 


iil 


The long and traditional misunderstanding of Middle- 
Age civilisation has had its repercussion on the history of 
philosophy. 

In university instruction, the entire interest is centred 
upon ancient philosophy, which ends in 529 with the closing 
of the school of Athens, and upon modern philosophy, in- 
augurated by Descartes. According to this conception, 
humanity lay sunk in leaden slumber until the time came 
when the clarion call of the Renaissance announced the 
awakening of human thought. 

As people have not taken the trouble to study such men 
as Thomas Aquinas or Duns Scotus, they are regarded 
somewhat as logic-choppers, repeating old theological argu- 
ments over and over again, as men out of touch with the 
world of reality and so devoid alike of originality and of 
interest. Is it right, we should ask ourselves, thus to rend 
asunder the evolution of human thought? Even admitting 
that the philosophical processes of medieval thinkers are 
utterly different from our own, do not these thinkers repre- 
sent a stage of the human mind ever advancing towards an 
elusive truth? There is nothing in Roger Bacon’s alchemy 
resembling our detailed laboratory experiments; still, it 
is not on that account neglected in the history of science. 
There is nothing in the evolution of mankind altogether 
devoid of interest, no single conception that has not assimi- 
lated to itself something of the past, that has not supplied 
something of itself to the patrimony handed down to one 
another by the following ages. Simply from this point of 
view, the history of philosophy, in suppressing ten centuries 
of speculation, offers humanity a truncated image that is 
absolutely illegitimate. 

From another point of view, the history of philosophy 
is lacking in the great joy of associating with really 
powerful and original thinkers. The problem to which the 


xxxii RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


great speculatives of the thirteenth century and the mystics 
of the fourteenth applied their resources is an ever-present 
problem. It is ours, as it was that of Plato, Plotinus and 
Leibniz. There have been few attempts in history so gigantic 
as the effort to solve it. The broad sweep of the system of 
Thomas Aquinas, the soaring heights attained by such 
mystics as Ruysbroeck or Meister Eckhart, have seldom 
been equalled. Now, if human thought is a heritage handed 
down to us, with the obligation to pass it on to our children 
in nobler and grander form, we are indebted to the philo- 
sophers of the Middle Ages just as we are to the Greek 
thinkers: this, too, in a degree that we are only just beginning 
rightly to estimate. 

Modern philosophy, preoccupied about its links with the 
past, has gone beyond Descartes and halted before the 
door of the cathedrals of Strasbourg and Cologne or at the © 
threshold of the cells of fourteenth-century monks. “That 
the moral consciousness is a method, that we are authorised 
to regard as certain the theories we need for right action, 
even if we find ourselves incapable of explaining and develop- 
ing them, of incorporating them with science, is a fruitful 
thought which Kant certainly borrowed from no one; it was 
the peculiar inspiration of his generous heart; all the same, 
he might have found its germ in Pascal, its development, 
perhaps too audacious and confident, in the despised mys- 
ticism of the Middle Ages, according to which the progress 
of knowledge has for its condition and standard the fidelity 
of the thinker in regulating his conduct by previously 
known truth.” } 

The idealistic school which succeeded Kant is reproduced, 
along with Hegel and Schelling, in the mysticism of Meister 
Eckhart and Saint-Victor. Far from being a rootless—and 
therefore lifeless—tree, medieval thought drew its best 
elements from Hellenism. It continues the philosophical 
tradition of antiquity, modifies it by its own temperament 
and hands it on to successors who bring it right down to 


1 Ch. Secrétan: La Civilisation et la Croyance, p. 7. 


INTRODUCTION XXXII 


the present time. Here, indeed, after the failure of the 
materialistic school, modern tendencies, along the lines of 
psychology and material science, proceed to a conception 
of the Divine, the striking relationship of which to medieval 
speculation is manifest, “that is to say, to the vision of 
God regarded as immanent in the universe . . . and also of 
human life regarded as forming part of this profound reality.” 

If this be the case, we can no more destroy ten centuries 
with a stroke of the pen than we can isolate the Middle Ages 
as a sort of watertight historical period. Indeed, these cen- 
turies form the very links for establishing the continuity of 
our intellectual patrimony. 


IV 


The only convincing arguments in favour of this general 
position are to be found in closely correlated texts. 

What is the great fact to which this examination leads? 
That the Middle Ages had another master than Aristotle; 
that the dominating influence must be attributed to Plotinus 
and Neoplatonism. 

The Aristotle of the Middle Ages is himself a Neoplatonist. 
As the original texts were lacking, the Middle Ages knows 
the Stagirite only in fragmentary fashion, through Neo- 
platonist commentaries. The copious influx- of ideas intro- 
duced by Jewish and Arabic philosophers is wholly imbued 
with Neoplatonism, quite as much as the Greek and Latin 
Fathers. We cannot forget that the two great spiritual 
leaders of the Middle Ages, Saint Augustine and Scotus 
Erigena, were in touch—the one directly and the other 
indirectly—with Neoplatonism. 

If therefore we had to give a chronological frame or 
scheme to the Middle Ages, we should have to extend the 
conventional limit beyond the years 476 or 39§ and go back 
to the third century, to the very origins of medizval spiritu- 
ality. We ought likewise to go beyond 1453, for Neoplatonism 

c 


xxxiv RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


is the principal factor—along with Marsilio Ficino—in the 
Florentine Renaissance. 

The Middle Ages is mainly characterised by the pre- 
dominance of religious unrest and the supremacy of theology. 
We cannot understand this general unrest if we know nothing 
of the seething conditions in which third-century Christianity 
was involved, seriously imperilling it, until the hypocritical 
opportunism of Constantine determined once for all the 
establishment of Christianity. 

This official Christianity, however, contrary to general 
opinion, did not come about as a substitute for pagan 
civilisation. Just as victorious Rome assimilated vanquished 
Hellenism—Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit—so Christian- 
ity was profoundly influenced by its environment. It is in 
the third century—in the popular aspirations which spring 
up simultaneously in pagan syncretism, in agnosticism, 
followed by Manichzism, and in Platonic mysticism, in the 
universally experienced need for pardon and expiation, in 
that élan towards invisible things which is common to so 
many races then blended in the ferment of Rome—that we 
must seek the germs of medieval thought. 

In the third century, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism and 
Christianity have almost equal influence. The balance, how- 
ever, is soon to be disturbed, and the struggle limited to the 
philosophy of Plotinus and to Christianity: Gnosticism can 
meet the erudition of an Origen and the speculations of a 
genius like Plotinus only with the lucubrations of the Pistis 
Sophia or the books of ‘fez. It continues to degenerate, and, 
in proportion as life fades away, formulas and rites increase, 
as happens with all dying religions. And so it dies, though 
not until it has bequeathed something of itself to Christianity. 
Indeed, it was Gnosticism which handed down to the Church 
the sacramental idea, the theory of a rite working solely by 
its own virtue (opus operatum). 

Afterwards Manichæism is seen to revive in the heresies 
of the Middle Ages, which change their name though not 
their tendency. On the other hand, we find the mystical 


INTRODUCTION XXXV 


ferment of the philosophy of Plotinus, after lamblichus and 
Porphyry, working out systems, encouraging the contem- 
plative habit, and finally, among the people, culminating in 
a veritable pantheism. 

On the Christian side, this is the time for laying firm 
foundations. Confronted with such a medley of ideas and 
aspirations, Saint Cyprian and Origen aspire to provide the 
religious soul of humanity with a unique refuge; and this, 
not only in a spiritual conception, but also in a universal 
ecclesiastical organism. Obedient to an intuition of genius, 
these great organisers offer the world the very thing that 
pagan syncretism lacked. This mighty organism was to assert 
itself with all the more power, seeing that in so vast a 
structure was found the very thing that the restless soul 
of the period was seeking: contact with God, the touching 
sacrifice of a Mediator whose saving death was evoked in a 
glow of mystery well suited to initiates. When therefore, in 
the fourth century, the Edict of Milan gave official sanction 
to the universal,religion, the world of antiquity found itself 
ready to enter, without either repugnance or regret, the 
vaults of the Church. 

The third century has another important claim on our 
attention. Not only is it, historically and psychologically, 
connected with the Middle Ages, but it also gives evidence 
of striking correspondences with the present state of 
things.1 

From the strictly philosophical point of view, it is 
possible, grosso modo, to mark off the various stages which 
connect Neoplatonism and the third century with the thought 
of the Middle Ages. 

The closing of the school of Athens disperses the official 
masters of Neoplatonism. Its spirit, however, can neither 
be exiled nor recovered. Already Saint Augustine had utilised 
the theories of Plotinus dealing with exemplarism and the 
purification of the soul. Boétius, the unfortunate minister 
of Theodoric, found great inspiration in the De Consolatione 

1See W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus, London, 1918, v. II. pp. 219 ss. 


xxxvi RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
of Porphyry, nor did he fear to justify by Neoplatonic 


arguments the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. 

After 529, the condemned philosophy is reduced to the 
point of presenting itself as Christian. The Pseudo-Dionysius 
is a true disciple of Proclus, and Scotus Erigena, by circulating 
a translation of Dionysian treatises in the ninth century, 
ensures for Neoplatonism a renewed — though hidden — 
vitality. In addition, Scotus Erigena relies upon the doc- 
trine of the Pseudo-Dionysius in elaborating his great work 
on the divisions of nature. 

With Scotus Erigena determining the main trend of the 
intellectual life of the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that 
we are continually finding survivals of Neoplatonism. 
Scholasticism itself, hitherto regarded as under the patron- 
age of Aristotle, has become assimilated both with Neo- 
platonism and with Aristotelian Peripateticism. Along with 
the Pseudo-Dionysius, it divides questions by stating posi- 
tive arguments on one side and negative arguments on the 
other; crowning its important synthesis with a mystical 
method derived direct from Plotinus. And so the distinction 
set up between the great Scholastics and the speculative 
mystics of the fourteenth century does not exist: the latter 
do but complete the work of the former. 

It is quite evident, then, that the Middle Ages showed no 
anxiety to confine the mind within rigid formulas or to em- 
bark along false paths. The profound idealism of the philoso- 
pher of Lycopolis flows like a subterranean stream beneath 
the foundations of the Church, gushing up to the surface, 
now in such personalities as Scotus Erigena, Hugues de 
Saint-Victor, Meister Eckhart, and again in the Protestant 
movements of the twelfth or the fourteenth century. 

Carinthia and Ukraine are traversed by a very winding 
stream. At its source it is called Poik. After a time, it dis- 
appears in a crevice and continues underground. Very soon 
it emerges, swollen with the waters it has encountered in 
subterranean darkness. It is now called Unz. It disappears 
a second time, and, on coming to the surface, is called Lai- 


INTRODUCTION XXXVII 


bach. The water is still the same, though it changes name 
after each visit underground. 

This stream supplies us with a good analogy for the 
history of Neoplatonism. It does not always appear visibly, 
though supplying sustenance for ten centuries of philosophy. 
And though it frequently has no name, it is always there, 
at the very heart both of Scholasticism and of Mysticism, 
in the palace schools with Scotus Erigena as in the peaceful 
retreat of the abbey of Saint-Victor. It is Neoplatonism that 
arouses in the mind of the people those uneasy longings 
whose manifestation exposed the steel corslet with which, 
in knightlike fashion, it was clothed. It was Neoplatonism 
that made the Middle Ages, not the period of quibbling and 
logic-splitting, but pre-eminently the spiritual age, wherein 
the problem of religion dominates all others, seeks expres- 
sion, lisps the principles of the religion of the spirit, and is 
resolved into the very bosom of God, after having superseded 
all forms and intermediaries. 


V 


À view so different from the usual conception of things 
calls for proof. It is our purpose to supply this proof in 
Ruysbroeck the Admirable. Great historical syntheses have 
become increasingly difficult. Henceforth they can only be 
undertaken with the aid of numerous specialists. 

Thus limited, our work aims at being no more than a 
chapter in the history of philosophy. We have confined our- 
selves exclusively to unravelling the springs of Ruysbroeck’s 
thought. Whence come its essential elements? How far is it 
influenced, and how far original? Does this thought, cul- 
minating in different intellectual currents, consist of a single 
stream, after a previous stage of incubation? Or rather has 
it become expanded by successive impulses, themselves 
determined by the accidents of life ? Such, strictly, is our plan. 

This inquiry, difficult enough though passionately instruc- 


xxxvil RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


tive, has not hitherto tempted any of the scholars who have 
dealt with the speculative mysticism of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. Is it presumptuous of us to undertake to fill up the gap? 

In order not to lose himself in such an investigation, 
however, the historian should trace out for himself before- 
hand a plan, with a well-defined method. 

While the study of the texts—with all that it involves 
in combining and collating, examining manuscripts, show- 
ing their connections and interdependence—is the main con- 
cern, of itself alone it is insufficient. The inner or spiritual 
development of the ideas, the very formation of the thought, 
largely depend on external facts. In this direction our task 
is closely connected with history and psychology. 

We must make acquaintance with the man and his 
surroundings. Genius itself is conditioned by time, race and 
environment. The combined effect of various influences, 
exercising outward pressure, models and shapes the per- 
sonality, as does the thumb of a sculptor. This it is that 
gives stability to genius, disciplines the inner powers by 
compelling them to function within determined limits. 
Would a Savonarola, a Luther, a Dante have been what 
they were had the political and religious conditions of their 
age been different? It is not very probable. 

As the tree draws its sap from the soil, so the historical 
individual feeds his ardour on the aspirations and the sorrows 
of his times. He gives them greater expression, though they 
must mainly be sought in that laboratory made up of the 
life of a nation, or in the collective consciousness of the crowd. 

This history is more than the picture of all the develop- 
ments whereby nation or man assert or organise themselves, 
oppose their enemies. Modern historiography has reinstated 
the naive chroniclers who scrupulously told of ruined crops 
and floods, attributing to these events—which were outside 
the sphere of the human will—an importance at least equal 
to that of the death of a prince, or the promulgation of a 
charter. In Brussels, in the year 1315, a violent insurrection 
was found to have originated in a terrible cattle-plague. 


INTRODUCTION 29.5 
The enhanced price of food, followed by famine, provoked 


a series of disturbances which, ten years later, caused John 
the Third to make important concessions. In 1314, a deluge 
of rain arrested Louis X. le Hutin, who was making ready 
to invade Flanders, and the destruction of crops in the 
army zone compelled him to dismiss his troops. We may 
also note the direct connection between the plague epidemic 
of 1348-9 and the itinerant manifestations of the Flagellants. 

And so we should leave no stone unturned in penetrating 
to the very heart of the everyday life of the times. The 
description of the toilet of a grande bourgeoise and the scale 
of wages received by the weavers are quite as important 
elements of historical reconstruction as are the martial 
deeds of a prince. Ruysbroeck plays an active part in the 
religious agitation that characterises the first half of the 
fourteenth century. This effervescence, as we shall see, is so 
intimately linked with social and political vicissitudes that 
these latter cannot be neglected with impunity. 

Before therefore attempting a sketch of this highly intel- 
lectual figure, if we would have it complete, we must have 
recourse to history. It is impossible not to wonder how such 
a personality was moulded, what impressions made them- 
selves felt in his soul, especially when the youth was emerging 
into manhood. What was his family, and what did school 
teach him? What was the condition of Flanders and the 
Duchy of Brabant, slowly being squeezed on the one side 
by the king of France and on the other by the king of 
England? What were the hopes and the miseries of the popu- 
lace and those material and spiritual disturbances which 
rise and disappear, like bubbles on the surface of still water? 

So vast and complex is the subject that we have fre- 
quently been compelled to keep to the main lines, those we 
regarded as indispensable to the ensemble. The biographers 
of old represented Ruysbroeck as humbly submissive to the 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Of this mescio quid divinum 
the historian can have but a very distant vision. Still, he 
is fortunate if he can keep it steadfastly before his eyes, 


oat RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


for it is that which, at bottom, constitutes the entire value 
of history. 

The sole recommendation by which this work can profit 
is that it was undertaken on the advice of Francois Picavet, 
of the Collége de France, Professor at the Ecole pratique 
des Hautes-Etudes. 

In it he saw the realisation of a wish expressed in his 
Esquisse des philosophies médiévales, when he asked students 
“to determine as exactly as could be expected . . . that 
which, in the work of each thinker, comes from his predeces- 
sors and contemporaries, and that which he has found out 
for himself and handed on to his successors. . . . The time 
is past,” he added, “when one man could study, as did 
Aristotle and Descartes, almost every subject which human 
intelligence undertakes to investigate: each one should devote 
himself wholly to a definite line of research if the field of the 
unknown is to become smaller and smaller.” 

The eminent master who thus expressed himself was 
good enough to examine with us, during the last few days 
of his life, the main theories of this work and their textual 
justifications. We shall not forget those conversations, 
solemnised by the approach of death, nor that ascetic face, 
lit up by the glow of thought and meditation. It is with 
keen emotion that we tender the homage of profound grati- 
tude to the memory of the learned mediævalist. 

And it would be ungrateful not to mention in this place 
those whose works have cleared the way for us. The book 
of Dr. A. A. Van Otterloo,! which constituted an extremely 
remarkable initiative for this period, unfortunately follows 
the biography of Surius, of no personal value, and does not 
enter into questions of criticism. Canon A. Auger is far 
better informed.? In a general review of the Netherland 


1 Johannes Ruysbroeck, een bijdrage tot de kennis van den ontwikkelingsgang der 
Mystiek, Amsterdam, 1874. 

2 Etude sur les mystiques des Pays-Bas au moyen âge, pp. 157-264 (in Mém. 
couronnés de l’Académie royale de Belgique, t. XLVI., 1891.—De doctrina et 
meritis Joannis van Ruysbroeck, in Thèses de doctovat of the University of 
Louvain, 1892). 


INTRODUCTION xli 


mystics of the Middle Ages, he devoted to Ruysbroeck a 
hundred pages, so well documented that they undoubtedly 
merit the esteem of scholars. In addition, he wrote a Latin 
thesis on the teachings of our mystic. Undoubtedly these 
early works inspired later ones, which could but develop, 
with occasional rectifications of detail, the theories of the 
regretted Canon. 

And we should like to mention the learned works of 
Professor W. L. De Vreese, and of Père Van Mierlo, S.]., 
both of considerable scientific standing. 

Professor De Vreese, formerly head librarian of the 
University of Gand, first published some ancient documents 
on the life and work of Ruysbroeck in a series of articles in 
the review Het Belfort (Gand, 1895-6).1 Pursuing his investiga- 
tions in several libraries throughout Europe, he subsequently 
issued in two volumes a list of the principal manuscripts of 
Ruysbroeck’s works, thus affording an extremely important 
working basis for future editors of the text.? Finally, we are 
indebted to him—in the Biographie nationale, published by 
the Royal Academy of Belgium—for a note which not only 
takes into account the works of Van Otterloo and Canon 
Auger, but also contains a number of personal hypotheses 
deserving of being taken into consideration. 

For the most complete study of Ruysbroeck, however, 
which has appeared so far, we are indebted to Pére Van 
Mierlo, a Flemish Jesuit scholar. In a series of articles which 
appeared in 1909-10 in a review entitled Dietsche Warande 
en Belfort, Père Van Mierlo presented a very fine critical 
essay on the great mystic. By inserting Ruysbroeck’s works 
into the life of the author, Van Mierlo was the first to lay 
emphasis on the regular advance of Ruysbroeck’s thought, 
which, in a way, was moulded first on the career of the 
priest, then on that of the monk. Like his predecessors, Van 
Mierlo has not touched upon the question of the springs 


1 Collected in a pamphlet entitled: Bijdragen tot de hennis van het leven en de 
werken van Jan van Ruusbroec, Gand, 1896. 
* De Handschriften van Jan van Ruusbroec’s werken, Gand, 1900, 1902. 


xii RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


of the mystic’s thought. Still, he refers to his dependence 
on Scholasticism. 

In the preparation of this work frequent journeys have 
been necessary to Belgium and Holland, for the verification 
of sources of information, in the various university and other 
libraries. Special mention should be made of days spent, in 
August 1922, in Holland, at the abbey Saint-Paul de Wisques, 
a place in which Ruysbroeck is loved more than anywhere 
else in the world. 

With what intelligent understanding of the task, with 
what goodness of heart did the learned Benedictine Fathers 
place at our disposal the wealth of their library! There we 
worked, in a humble cell, identifying ourselves, so to speak, 
with the Admirable. One of the Fathers would come and 
seat himself at the work-table; in the refectory, with its red 
brick vaults, we shared their frugal repast, a Father mean- 
while reading aloud some portion of a pious work from a 
stone pulpit, so that it might be continually borne in upon 
us that man does not live by bread alone. At night, be- 
fore compline, we would walk about the garden or under 
the columns of the cloister with the hospitable monks. It 
was as though we had been carried back, far away from 
these harassed times of ours, to the very age in which 
Ruysbroeck lived. 

If it is the historian’s first duty to make himself con- 
temporary with his hero, there can be no doubt but that 
the Benedictines of Saint-Paul made this duty easy. In their 
laborious solitude we breathed the very air that must have 
circulated beneath the vaults of the Brabantine monastery. 

One evening, an aged monk, with emaciated face but 
impressively profound eyes, entered the cell, his arms laden 
with books. After laying down his burden, we began to talk 
—of Ruysbroeck, naturally. 

Suddenly, with that energy which at times would seem 
to convert the monk into the soldier, the old Father, to 
whom we had set forth the main lines of our thesis, said: 
“This work must be done well, or not at all.” The imperative 


INTRODUCTION xii 


tone of his voice betrayed the monk’s veneration for the 
blessed Ruysbroeck, and the dread of seeing profaned so 
ancient and touching a figure... . 

Alas! We do not know if we have done well; what we 
can say is, that this has been a labour of love and of un- 
bounded respect. In contact with great souls, one must 
grow. Erudition, analysis and criticism do not exclude that 
mental attitude which allows itself to be permeated with 
heroic influences. For here, as at all times, to understand 
is to love. 


Ê 


yy ; Pee fF {au ‘abel Ny. ‘ 
2! RL MA ORY 





PRS ocr Aen 


HISTORICAL INFLUENCES AND THE LIFE 
OF RUYSBROECK 


inf 

MALTE # 

EAG ‘ 
hen 
Ya, 





RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


RIRS'EA:P ART 


HISTORICAL INFLUENCES AND THE LIFE 
OF RUYSBROECK 


CHAPTER I 


SOCIETY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY AND THE 
DEMOCRATIC REVIVAL 


Jouannes Ruyssproeck belongs wholly to a century whose 
destiny it was to spread about the world the germs of 
emancipation without succeeding in freeing itself. 

From beginning to end, the fourteenth century was 
shaken by the starts and upheavals of that giant, the people. 
The latter had suddenly roused itself at the beginning of the 
century, being threatened by two enemies, the king of 
France and the patriciate, whose causes were really one 
and the same. For eighty years, the struggle, waged on 
religious grounds, favoured now one side, now the other. 
When the century ended, however, all that remained of the 
popular victories was, to the vanquished, a painful memory. 
The battle of Roosebeke (1382) saw the breaking of 
looms, the rout of the ‘“horribles tisserands” who, but a 
short time before, were picking up, on the plains of Courtrai, 
the golden spurs of French knights, as trophies of an anti- 
quated regime and pledges of a more hopeful future. 

The democratic revolution of the fourteenth century was 
essentially of an economical and social order. Still, it can- 
not be circumscribed within these narrow limits. Indeed, the 
interplay of alliances extends the field of conflict beyond the 

3 


Pf 


Pg 


Ped 


“VV 


pu 


4 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


theatre in which the drama is being played. Besides, the 
political passions being born are not unrelated to the reli- 
gious unrest silently working upon the masses. Questions of 
social emancipation, of external politics and of spiritual 
independence overlap one another, nor can they be separated 
under penalty of distorting or mutilating history. 

And so it is the story of a vanquished man that we have 
undertaken to relate, though of one whose defeat was dearly 
paid for and whose hopes survived disaster. 

How these hopes came to birth; how they manifested 
themselves; how and why they could not become facts: such 
is the threefold question it is important to solve if we would 
apprehend the soul of the century. 

What, indeed, should we know of a period, if we were 
content with giving a list of outstanding events? Centuries, 
like trees, grow in concentric circles, but development could 
not come about without the hidden action of the sap. This 
it is that calls forth the thrust and urge of the sap-wood 
towards the exterior. In like fashion, there is present in the 
life of communities a secret and active element which does 
not appear in chronicles but which it is important to seek 
behind the letter of the documents. 

This will enable us at the same time to establish the con- 
nections, the religious, national and political bonds whereby 
Ruysbroeck is linked on to the history of his people and his 
time. In a study of the origins of his thought, work of this 
kind is absolutely necessary. In the condition of the country 
are to be found the reasons of his vocation, the causes that 


; impel him along the path he is about to take. 


I 


Above all else, there is the social question. 

There had been set up in Flanders and Brabant of the 
twelfth century an oligarchical regime, known under the 
name of the patriciate. At the moment, the patrician regime 
is very powerful; but domination was accompanied by a 


SOCIETY IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 5 


forgetfulness of the original tradition, which consisted in 
absolute devotion to public affairs. But in ascertaining the 
distinction between the original spirit and the present devi- 
ations therefrom, the historian must take into consideration 
the eminently civilising part played by the patriciate in the 
thirteenth century. By appointing the commons, endowing : 
them with a liberal system of constitutions or Keures, distri- 
buting equally rights and obligations over the whole of the 
citizens, submitting all their doings to the jurisdiction of a 
tribunal, it was the patriciate which, in the midst of a 
feudal system, was the first to set up the image of the 
patrie and to confer on a group of men, united by common 
interests, a real moral personality. 

The character of the commune, clearly democratic at first, 
was quickly to become modified—not by a sudden exhibition 
of force, but by that very action or interplay of social life 
for which absolute equality is but a claim impossible of 
realisation. 

The varying fortunes of commerce, skill and intelligence, 
perseverance in work, credit: these are some of the factors 
which detached from the masses an ever increasing number 
of individuals whose professional competence ensured their 
ascendency over the rest. With this authority, and for the 
same reasons, corresponded financial superiority. Thus there 
came into being, by the very laws of social life, a veritable 
moneyed aristocracy, the majores, who exercised ever greater 
dominance over the masses, the minores. 

No doubt the people would have accepted this dependence, 
had merit and the regulations of work alone continued to 
make it possible to draw upon this aristocracy. The working 
generation of the first patricians, however, was succeeded 
by a generation of unproductive heirs. The sons of many 
a bourgeois were content to enjoy, in idleness, the fortunes 
they had inherited. Stigmatised by the people as loungers or 
saunterers (lediggangers) or as hutseux (otiosi), they none 
the less took care to profit by the privileges attached to 
functions they no longer performed. The populace rightly 

D 


6 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Abs ices those who refuse to work because they have been 
born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The mercatores, 
in spite of their insolent ostentation, were never so bitterly 
hated as these proud idlers. 

This scission in the population of the city was further 
ageravated by specialisation. Dealers or merchants were a 
class apart from the artisans. The latter in turn, through a 
spirit of professional vanity, became subdivided according 
to their special occupations: there were weavers and fullers, 
carders and furriers, dyers and tanners. The Keures of Bruges 
even make separate mention of black leather tanners (zwar- 
tledertauwers) and white leather tanners (witlederverwerkers). 
Thus split up, it is easy to see that the artisans, who, with 
all the naïveté of the simple-minded, regarded their narrow 
workshop rivalries as interests of vital importance, could” 
not marshal their scattered forces against the well-ordered 
might of the majores. 

In this state of things, the supremacy of money came to 
eclipse the old democratic spirit. Equilibrium, whilst literally 
remaining with the Keures, was disturbed to the detriment 
of the artisans. Having considerable economic power at their 
disposal, the rich patricians and the merchants joined in- 
gildes, which thus retained in the hands of a few families 
the greater part of the city’s fortune. Besides, it was almost. 
exclusively from these families that the échevins, or aldermen, 
and other communal functionaries were recruited. The bour- 
geoisie, indeed, scorning the constitutions, directed the city 
life and contracted alliances with foreign princes who had 
recourse to patrician fortunes to maintain their own pomp and 
luxury. In 1276, a communal regulation formally excluded 
from the échevinage of Alost tout homme de vilain mestier. 

Thus thwarted in their rights and subjected in their work 
to arbitrary jurisdiction, the artisans, determined to win the 
rights they were refused, in turn banded themselves together 
into professional confraternities. They were well aware that, 
more than any other party, they contributed to the prosperity 
of the city, and were the real providers of patrician wealth. 


SOCIETY IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 7 


Herded in wretched huts built of wood or of a mortar — 
made of loam and straw, in unhealthy districts, they could 
not help comparing their lot with that of the rich owners in 
their proud chateaux (steenen). They could not help seeing 
that the harshness of the law was directed against them- 
selves alone, and that the wealthy violated with impunity 
the very constitutions which they were pledged to maintain. 

While the members of the oligarchical clique scorned the 
fathers, they showed less disdain for their daughters. At 
night-time, the sons of the wealthy bourgeoisie organised 
regular razzias for the purpose of gratifying their lust. The 
Keures of Ghent tell of the shameless violence to which the 
wives and daughters of the artisans were daily subjected. 
And these disgraceful practices had entered so largely into 
the life and habits of the great, that the rape of a filia 
pauperis was less severely punished than the abduction of 
a high-born demoiselle. | 

The dependence in which the trades found themselves, | 
relatively to the guilds, made difficult all attempt at eman- | 
cipation. The masses had attempted by strikes to escape 
the many tyrannies of the rich. Their feeble efforts, however, 
but made their servitude heavier than before. As a certain 
number of artisans had evaded patrician domination by | 
emigrating, workmen were forbidden to leave the towns 
with their tools. An industrial police, consisting of dependents — 
of the échevinage, henceforth exercised a vexatious check 
upon the trades, controlling the hours of toil, fixing the 
amount of work to be done, setting up a scale of wages and 
of selling prices, and, by its spirit of unremitting interference, | 
exasperating the smouldering hatred. | 

From the end of the twelfth century onwards, the artisans : 
live in expectation of a better future. Deep in the human : 
heart, repressed hate awaits its day. But there is a presenti- | 
ment that this day will be a terrible one. | 

The avenging morrow towards which were directed the | 
enraged desires of the people was generally looked upon as 
the day of divine vengeance. Socialism, it has been said, is 


8 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the religion of those who have no religion. This is true, if we 
are to understand thereby that great popular movements 
readily assume a religious character. Besides, the fourteenth 
century was fully prepared to introduce an element of 
mysticism into its violent claims. 

The soul of the Middle Ages had thrilled to the voice of 
Francis of Assisi. Are not the poor and disinherited nearer 
to the heart of God? Is not the scorn of riches one of the 
conditions for entrance into the kingdom of heaven? The 
artisans, by their very circumstances, thus felt themselves 
marked out to establish the kingdom of righteousness on the 
ruins of the former regime. 

Justice! A magic word which will ever inflame the hearts 
of men. It is justice that stirs up immense hope in the soul 
of the simple-minded, and yet authorises, in their eyes, the 
most dastardly acts of violence. In the vicinity of the artisans 
were to be found men capable of nourishing this hope and of 
blending with it the spirit of piety. These were the Minor 
Friars, half laic and half religious, who went about the land 
preaching resignation and holy poverty. Uncultured, fanati- 
cal, and frequently coarse, they possessed one merit at all 
events: they loved the people. They shared the life of the 
poor, nursed and watched by the sick and wounded. Pro- 
tected by their sacred mission, they were not afraid, on 
occasion, of raising their voice in favour of their brothers 
in misfortune. 

To these men was largely due that strange blend of 
mysticism and violence which characterises the social 
tendencies of the fourteenth century. 


Il 


The situation, nevertheless, was threatening to continue 
indefinitely when political events supplied the people with 
an opportunity of effecting their emancipation. 

These events may all be summed up in the struggle 
with France, whose ambitions are directed both against 


SOCIETY TN FOURTEENTH CENTURY’ (9 


opulent Flanders and against the States that originated in 
ancient Lotharingia. 

Indeed, at the end of the thirteenth century, the centre 
of gravity of Europe became suddenly displaced. 

The Empire, a purely nominal suzerain of the Lothar- 
ingian States, exhausted by its prolonged struggle with the 
popes, was divided against itself. Soon, in 1314, there hap- 
pened the scandal of the dual consecration: Louis the 
Bavarian at Aix-la-Chapelle, and Frederick of Austria 
at Bonn. 

The other “half of God,” the papacy, is in no better case. 
The new situation finds complete expression in the sentence 
which, at the beginning of the century, Pierre Flotte puts 
into the mouth of Boniface VIII.: The power of my master 
is real; yours is but verbal.” From that time, a long series 
of bitter experiences begins for the pontiffs. Even if the 
tradition which states that Boniface VIII. was given a 
blow on the face by Nogaret has no solid foundation, it 
nevertheless reflects the policy adopted by the royal 
power towards the Holy See. Soon afterwards begins the 
Babylonish captivity. 

Set free on both sides, the king of France devises a vast 
political development, aiming at attaching to the Crown, 
Flanders and the small Lotharingian States so badly super- 
vised by the German suzerain. 

It is not known how Philippe le Bel would have carried 
through his ambitious intrigues, had not popular disturbances 
opened to him the gates of Flanders. 

What had taken place? The Flemish lion was aroused. 
He had already made trial of his strength in successive 
revolts all over Belgium. Riots followed in Brabant, Flanders, 
Liége during the years 1245, 1248, 1253, 1255 and 1267. These, 
however, were but skirmishes, fiercely repressed assaults. In 
1280, there came about a veritable revolution, in which the 
artisans were united against the patricians. It spread like a 
conflagration from town to town, encouraged in Flanders by 
‘Count Gui de Dampierre, humiliated at finding himself ever 


10 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


more and more under the sway of the gildes. The struggle 
lasted over twenty years, and everything pointed to the 
victory of the democratic masses when the patriciate, alarmed 
for their privileges, called Philippe le Bel to their aid. 

The popular conscience, however, cannot be prostituted. 
Whilst the patriciate were shamelessly féting the knights, 
decked out in fleurs-de-lis, revenge is being organised. One 
_ night, the plebeian wrath suddenly bursts forth: a terrible 
morrow for Bruges is the result. French blood mingles with 
that of the patricians. Then begins a thrilling epopee, 
whose heroes consist of poor weavers, despised fullers: all 
such artisans as have caught a momentary glimpse of free- 
dom. The people, intoxicated by the odour of carnage and 
favoured by disunion among the masters, hastens to com- 
plete its triumph. Armed with pikes, iron clubs, and dreadful 
cudgels with bristling points, the artisans assemble on the 
plain of Courtrai (1302). It is related that, before forming 
in squares, they knelt on the ground and kissed the very 
soil of their fatherland. That same night, the corpses of 
proud knights lay scattered over a plain bespangled with 
thousands of gold spurs. 

The news of the French defeat sent a prolonged thrill 
throughout Europe. Although ill, Boniface VIII. rose in the 
middle of the night, for he regarded the defeat of his insulter 
as a judgment direct from God. But nowhere had the demo- 
cratic victory such important results as in the Duchy of 
Brabant, where the conditions of the people were quite as 
harsh and unpleasant as in Flanders. 

An artisan having been wounded in Brussels by a 
patrician, the various trades rose with one accord in 1305: 
fabri, textores, sutores, tabernarii, lanit atque omnis illa fax 
civitatis. 

Victorious at first, the trades gain possession of the 
common house and reorganise the échevinage. John Il. 
Duke of Brabant, however, whose position as vassal of the 
Empire did not prevent him from accepting payment from 
the privy purse of Philippe le Bel, cut them in pieces a few 


DOCLETYIINOFOURTEENTHGENTURY. 9 Et 


weeks afterwards on the plain of Vilvorde. In addition, the : 


better to frighten them into a state of absolute obedience, he 
goes so far as to bury alive the ringleaders. 

In Flanders, the people, supported by the sympathy of 
all the democracies of Europe, refuse to submit. The entire 
continent would appear to have become the field on which 
the fortunes of the smaller peoples are being decided. 

Deluded by the fallacious peace of Athis, which had been 
concluded without their consent, the artisans hold the enemy 
in check by sudden revolts: the rising of maritime Flanders 
under Nicolas Zannekin was followed by the insurrection of 
1324, characterised on both sides by such deeds of violence 
that, as an old chronicler says, “men conceived a distaste 
for life itself.” In 1327, there raged a veritable red terror 
headed by Jacques Peit, until the exhausted rebels were 
crushed at Cassel by Philippe de Valois in 1328. 

Is this the end? No, an unexpected ally on the side 
of Flanders enters on the stage: the king of England. 
Here again it is economic questions that determine external 


policy. 


Unsuccessful in overcoming the hostility of the trades, } 


Philippe de Valois had decreed the cessation of commerce } 


with England. This decree (1336) meant ruin and famine for } 


Flanders. English wool, indeed, which the butchers obtained ! 


from immense flocks in the Highlands, passed entirely into : 


Flanders, where the artisans transformed it into those 


splendid scarlet striped materials which had carried the! 
fame of Flemish workmanship into the farthest confines | 


of Europe. 


A prolonged cry of pain and hatred resounded through- } 


out Flanders. Looms ceased working and men were seen 


wandering about in piteous groups, begging bread which |! 


no one could give them. 

Once more rebellion is a consequence of the prevailing 
ruin. Ît is a patrician this time who espouses the cause of 
the poor: Jacques van Artevelde. He does not hesitate to 
summon Edward III. to his aid, by which alliance he succeeds 


12 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


in reopening the English markets. In addition, he obtains 
from France, directly menaced by the might of England, 
recognition of the neutrality of Flanders and—something 
altogether novel in those days—effects a community of 
interests between Flanders and Brabant by means of an 
economic partnership, for he thinks that chil deus pays sont 
pleins de communauté de peuple ki soustenir ne se peuvent 
sans marcandise. 

The English, however, wholly occupied in waging a vic- 
torious war against France, rapidly forgot their allies. After 
the destruction of the French fleet, they besieged Tournai, : 
this time with the aid of Jean III., Duke of Brabant. What 
happened? Was there treason on this occasion? Or was the 
old rivalry between Brabanters and Flemish rekindled? In 
any case, the allies had to raise the siege, the consequence 
being riot and revolt both in Gand and in Brussels. 

Weavers and fullers come to blows, and the chief tribune 
in Gand is the first victim of these fratricidal struggles (1345). 
In Brussels, when the duke returns from the ill-starred siege 
of Tournai, he finds the place in open insurrection. For 
several days the revolt was on the point of succeeding: it was 
overcome only by the most pitiless measures. The list of 
banishments, confirmed by the duke in 1341, included several 
thousand names. 

And, as though these misfortunes were not enough, the — 
two countries, with common language, interests and aspira- 
tions, enter upon a ruthless war regarding the seigniory of 
Malines. The Flemish invade the duchy and cut to pieces 
the Brabanters on the day of the “fatal Wednesday.” 
Hostile brothers were seen killing one another in the streets 
of Brussels. A bold attack by Everard T’Serclaes drove the 
Flemish out of the town. 

But from that day the destiny of the two countries 
follows the same path. Separated at a time when union 
would have been the guarantee of their common victory, they 
are about to be reunited in servitude. A foreign master is to 
establish that territorial unification which they found it 


SOCIETY IN FOURTEENTH-CENTURY 13 


impossible to realise in discord. So true is it that neither 
peoples nor individuals can with impunity sacrifice moral 
interests in favour of material ones. 

The people have let their opportunity pass. In vain do 
they unite in Flanders and again rebel against the ruling 
patriciate in 1379. Their hour has struck, in spite of the 
valiant efforts of Philippe van Artevelde. Summoned a second 
time against the rebels, the king of France completes the © 
destruction of the communes. This was the young Charles VI., 
nephew of Philippe le Hardi. The communers were unable to 
recover from the defeat of Westroosebeke (1382). And when 
the House of Burgundy annexed exhausted Flanders, no- 
thing was left of the audacious dreams and aspirations that 
had risen from the plains of Courtrai at the beginning of 
the century. 

In Brabant, a similar decline in popular expectations 
took place. 

Under the reigns of Jean III. and of Wenceslas, riots 
followed (1356, 1357, 1359, 1368, 1370, etc.), without suc- 
ceeding in guaranteeing the rights of the artisans. Here, the 
rebellion was strongly tinged with mysticism, owing to stimu- 
lation by the mendicant orders or by heterodox sects.) At : 
other times, the misguided anger of the people turns upon 
the Jews. Then follow odious massacres, in which a spirit 
of madness, perverted from its true object, allows itself a 
free hand. In Brabant, the fourteenth century is perhaps 
the most grievous and sanguinary page in the book of the 
people’s misfortunes. From 1350 onwards their cause is 
lost, they cannot indulge in the prolonged hopes which 
sustained the Flemish. The Joyeuse Entrée, solemnly sworn 
by the Duchesse Jeanne and her husband Wenceslas in 1356, 
really confirms the hegemony of the patriciate at the same 
time as the dependence of the ruling house. By this act, all 
the prince’s initiatives—wars, alliances, coin-stamping—are 

1 When, in 1310, the Council of Vienna abolished the mendicant orders, the 
people manifested such violent opposition to the Dominicans, that Pope Clement 


V. was compelled, by brief, to revoke his first bull. Geldolphe A. Rijckel, Vita 
S. Beggae, p. 382. 


14 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


made subject to the consent of the commun-pays. This 
commun-pays, however, has no room in it for artisans. 

The new policy only ends in filling the streets with 
bloodshed and ensuring the dominance of the wealthy and 
the haute bourgeoisie. An unfortunate campaign against the 
Duc de Juliers ended by discrediting Wenceslas. The Bra- 
banters were crushed at Bastweiler (1370). Seven thousand 
were slain in battle, two thousand, including Wenceslas, 
were taken prisoner. 

Wenceslas died in 1383 without an heir, and a few years 
later the Duchesse Jeanne ceded her land in usufruct to 
Philippe le Hardi. | 

And now the House of Burgundy is to begin its amazing 
fortunes, like the conquerors of old, dragging behind its 
chariot the two vanquished provinces, this time linked 
together by the same chain. 


IIT 


| The vanquished, however, are great; they have suffered 

for the future. We may say that the germ of all the con- 
’ temporary social realisations was contained in the fourteenth 
century. The greatness of this age consisted in conceiving 
_ reforms, preparing freedom; its calamity, in being unable to 
translate into facts its bold and generous dreams. On the 
ruins of the feudal system it attempted to set up a new 
world, based on equality. It instilled in the heart of the 
artisan a pride in the perfection of his work. In particular, 
it thrilled with joy as it faintly glimpsed the indefeasible 
dignity of man as an individual. 

But there comes a time of maturity for ideas as well as © 
for the fruits of the earth. 

When we inquire into the causes of this great repulse, 
we find something else than royal absolutism, which is too 
exclusively regarded as the destroyer of this ardent age. 

First, there is the absence of a true national conscious- 


SOCIETY: IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 25 


ness. What did fatherland mean during these troublous 
times? Perhaps it may have been faintly outlined in the 
commune: but from the thirteenth century the commune is 
no longer the mother, solicitous of the interests of all her 
children; indeed, it is no more than the property of an 
abhorred class. Again, the commune is a tiny world in 
itself, without spiritual cohesion with other communes. 
Though but a few miles away, such towns as Gand, Bruges, 
Ypres, engage in jealous strife with one another. And in the 
very heart of the communes, as we have seen, specialisation 
of work brings into conflict with one another the different 
trades, blind to their interdependence. 

Nor does the sentiment of race exist, any more than the . 
idea of fatherland. These men hate one another, though 
they speak the same language, are of the same blood and 
think the same thoughts. They hate one another because 
material interests dominate all other. The humble weavers, 
no less than the rich patricians, feel a grudge against the 
looms at work in the neighbouring town. , 

And in the revolts which rouse the people from time to 
time, is it simply the vision of a better world that enflames 
men’s hearts and places weapons in their hands? We may 
doubt this. Certainly the lot of the people is a terrible one. 
When the historian finds them relegated to unhealthy districts, 
when he sees their poor houses burnt to the ground in those 
immense conflagrations which razed an entire district in a 
night, when he knows what a toll this unfortunate people 
pays to pestilence and epidemic, when he finds them cheated 
of their wages, and forced to idleness by the martial caprice 
of princes or the intrigues of alliances—he cannot help 
feeling sympathetic towards the poor and disinherited. 
Sympathy, however, cannot abolish clarity of vision. 

Manifestly the people were ill prepared to understand an : 
aim or objective too far ahead. A Van Artevelde, a Pierre 
Coutereel are really prophets, advocates of a cause that has 
been well thought out. The masses, ignorant of the laws 
that regulate social life, see in insurrection only an oppor- 


16 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


tunity to gain possession of coveted goods, to know in their 
turn something of the enjoyments of the great. It is not 
. simply domineering wealth, it is also the blind ignorance of 
‘ the crowd that has doomed to failure the most ardent 
‘ social aspirations. 

Strength of muscle alone cannot ensure the greatness of 
a city; it must be allied with might of brain. So long as the 
intellectual level remains below human aspirations, nothing 
need be expected from the most legitimate developments. 
It is still worth while, at the present time, to learn the 
* lesson of the fourteenth century. 


But there is another lesson, also an instructive one, for 
our own sorely harassed age. Social reforms cannot be 
instituted without a corresponding development of the 
moral sense, without the approach of the individual to a 
spiritual dignity in accord with his civic dignity. 

Now, the fourteenth century, like the whole of the 
Middle Ages, is deeply imbued with dualistic elements. 
While it transcends previous centuries in realisations and 
hopes, it does not rise above them in the domain of morals. 

It is rent asunder by a prolonged antithesis. Of this, its 
art and architecture, morals and religion, are a proof. Along 
with economic power at its highest is found the most sordid 
wretchedness; intense external refinement accompanies the 
most repulsive vice, as does a noble humanitarianism un- 
bridled violence. The culture of the purest ideal is one with 
the deification of the flesh and delight in all uncleanness. 

This contrast was perfectly expressed by the painters of 
genius who appeared a few years later. With like masterly 
skill they depict an indecent orgy and the pure profile of a 
virgin. Inspiration is found in illuminated engravings or 
carvings of altar-screens. Such “‘imagiers” as Jean de Gand 
(1328), Beauneveu (1364), Hennekin de Bruges, Jean de 
Marville (1372), to quote only a few names, are the pre- 
cursors of such delightful artists as van Eyck and his brother. 
Although belonging to the following century, they are really 


SOCIBPY IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 17 


the offspring and the interpreters of the fourteenth. Born, 
the one in 1364 and the other about 1385, they follow the 
lines of the famous Haekendover altar-screen, which has 
already broken away from the affected symbolism of the 
Middle Ages in order to copy life exactly as it manifests 
itself. Through them we glimpse the continuity of a tradition 
which will be nothing else than the potent expression of 
that which 1s: we catch a faint vision of Memlinc and van 
der Goes, and, a century earlier, of Pierre Breughel and of 
Rubens, that artist so enamoured of pronounced flesh effects. 

Now, from the middle of the fourteenth century, this 
tradition is a dual one. Look, for instance, at Jan van 
Eyck’s portrait of Jean Arnolfini and his wife. Here the 
light does not come from without, in dazzling sheets falling 
from above, as in the case of Italian painters. It is created 
in the very room itself, from the shining pewter and copper 
or from the play of colour on silk or satin. Who has more 
admirably expressed the peace and quiet of the home or the 
splendours of a spiritual life shedding divine light upon 
the ecstatic brows of the “Anges chanteurs”? 

Alongside of this we have the sleek poetry of super- 
abundant life, the glorification of carnality impudently 
obtruding itself on the gaze. Here is Eve, with marble flesh, 
and overflowing with vitality. And such, very shortly, will 
be the attraction of the real for these masters of colour, that 
they will endeavour to give a faithful interpretation even 
of the foul impurity of an orgy, with its overturned stools. ... 

This dissociation is also to be found in the clear-cut 
separation between the classes, in economic organisation, in 
literature, where we find some page of Boendale or of Ruys- 
broeck combining the most truculent realism with the most 
exquisite finesse. It expresses itself in the new buildings 
beginning to appear. 

The markets, for instance, are half church and half 
citadel in style. They bring together the same crowds, not 
this time given up to the disinterested ecstasy of piety, but 
rather to positive material realities. By the side of the 


18 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


steeple, with its summons to God, rises the belfry, a lofty 
tower clearly symbolising the dominance of the civil power. Its 
brazen bell is indeed the voice of the laic city; it celebrates 
feasting and good cheer, or suddenly, with ardent clang, 
calls on the people to defend their threatened interests. 

Mention may also be made of the obliteration of the moral 
sense, the practically general prevarication on the part of 
magistrates who do not fear to set themselves above the 
laws they so strictly enforce. Jean Boendale, our valuable 
chronicler, who knew what he was speaking about, seeing 
that he had for many years been secretary to the college 
of échevins at Antwerp, delivers himself on this matter 
without mincing his words: 

He who takes a step towards buying the échevinage purchases hell, 
for scarcely one in ten échevins holds the scales evenly balanced. Friend- 
ship, a liking for presents, relatives, all these cause him to forsake justice at 
any hour of the day. So blind is he that he does not recognise what is right. 

What must morality have been amid so general a state 
of disturbance and unrest? Among the poor, a secret hatred, 
champing at the bit and waiting its time. Among the rich, 
insolent luxury and the cruelest domination. Moral decay on 
every side, a lack of those sturdy virtues which alone warrant 
the safety of societies and individuals alike. 

We have pointed to the wretched lot of the artisans, who 
were wholly dependent on political events. And yet, in 
periods of quiet, never had the wages of the workman risen 
so high in proportion to the cost of the necessaries of life. 
It has been calculated that a workman earning nine sols 
per day received the equivalent of eighteen loaves. A daily 
wage of three sols corresponded to three chickens, or one 
hundred and twenty eggs, or again, one hundred and fifty 
herrings. This meant that a workman could effect large 
economies in view of a rainy day. And when this latter comes 
along, if he complains, he should find fault with his own 
heedlessness quite as much as with external events. The 
simplicity of antiquity, however, no longer holds any charm, 
either for wealthy patricians or for negligent artisans. 


SOCIETY IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 19 


The very stones are, as it were, racked by a sickly imagi- 
nation. Consider the monumental hostels of the people in high 
quarters. On their façade, innumerable small columns, minia- 
ture grinning faces. Even the many-coloured window-panes 
seem bent on thwarting the light of day. All this is apart 
from simple, reliable humanity. 

This extravagant inspiration creates fashions in which 
the bizarre vies with the immodest. The fourteenth century 
has been called le siécle de la chemise, because this under- 
garment was so generally worn. It would be more correct © 
to call it the century of nudity. 

Woman, abandoning her normal rôle, has become a 
flower de luxe. From the low-cut corset to the narrow tight- 
fitting gown, everything contributes to enhance the lewd 
splendour of the flesh. 

On this point listen to Ruysbroeck, who had seen these 
unveiled beauties in the streets of Brussels: 

Women make themselves gowns so narrow as to be shameful. They 
ornament them within and without, devising numberless futilities to 
enflame the senses. If they imagine themselves of noble birth, they must 
have on their face twisting horns like those of a goat, so that they may 
resemble the Evil One. Thus bedizened, they go and look at themselves 
in a mirror to see if they are beautiful enough to seduce the devil and 
the world. In spite of all this finery, however, their body is none the less 
a foul and unclean sack. All the same, they make wide cuttings at the top ? 


of their gowns, so that one may contemplate at leisure this repulsive sack, : 
full of vile dung.’ 


These are not the words of an ascetic inclined to excess. | 
For Boendale, a layman, says the same thing: 
Men wear coats so short as to be immodest. Women squeeze themselves 


so much that they give undue prominence to those parts of the body : 
intended to remain veiled, thus arousing guilty desires. | 


Then appear the hennin and the escoffion, extravagant 
coiffures against which, at the beginning of the fifteenth 
century, there arose a veritable crusade directed by Thomas 
Connecte, a Carmelite friar. At Brussels, Wenceslas organised 
at court farandoles of semi-nude girls; the pleasure train was 


1 The Tabernacle, vol. II. pp. 175 ss. 


20 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


one that never stopped. Respite from warfare was given up 
to feasting and good cheer. Listen to the lines in which the 
poet Eustache Deschamps expresses his adieux to this life 
of enjoyment and plenty: 

Adieu, beauté, liesse, tous déliz, 

Chanter, danser et tous esbatements! 

Cent mille foys a vous me recommans, 

Brusselle, adieu, où les bains sont jolys, 

Les estuves, les fillettes plaisans! 

Adieu, beauté, liesse et tous déliz, 

Belles chambres, vins du Rin, molz liz, 

Connins, plouviers et capons et fesans, 


Compaignie doulce et courtoises gens, 
Adieu, beauté, liesse et tous déliz. 


Nor were the people much more moral. Deprived of 
sumptuous meals, they found compensation in ignoble beer- 
drinking and debauchery, as far as their means allowed. 
They were also fond of singing. The character of a race 
is perhaps most clearly expressed in its popular songs. In 
the present instance, we have mysticism and a cloying 
sentimentality, combined with truculence of expression which 
is almost invariably carried to the length of obscenity. The 
populace takes huge delight in licentious farces, sotternijen, 
public shows in which a deceived husband or mistress, or 
a shameless monk, excites the ribald jest and laughter of 
the masses. 

Love has completely stripped itself of its chivalrous aspect; 
on the contrary, it is paraded in all its brutal immodesty from 
top to bottom of the social scale. The étuves, or bathing 
establishments, an innovation of the times, are really 
houses of prostitution, in which scantily clad ancillae place 
themselves at the service of the coarsest appetites. The 
prescriptions of the Keures, forbidding ribauderie et niaise 
compaignie, remain a dead letter. Sad-eyed matrons openly 
intervene to procure for the daughters of the people “ gallants 
* who will buy them fine gowns.” “Youth is spent in health- 
) destroying lewdness. Did not girls know the consequence of 
\ frailty, scarcely one would be found deserving the name of 
virgin. . . . Almost all men attempt to seduce girls, whom 


SOCTE IY UNGSO CUR BEN BEC ENDO ROY oan 


they afterwards abandon. Is there a single woman who, for | 
money, would not sell herself, body and soul? Vice and} 
shame are of little concern to them.” } ' 

The general vogue of abortion, moreover, makes it 
easy for them to indulge fearlessly in the most barefaced ! 
licentiousness. 

In vain do the Keures inflict severe penalties against the 
general decline of morals, punishing with ban and fine rape 
adultery and promenades immorales. 

You cannot check a raging torrent with paper dikes. 
The flesh has been given the rein, and not until the six- 
teenth century will the spirit regain some control and 
mastery over unfettered bodies. 


1 Boendale, Dietsche Doctrinale, édit. Jonckbloet, v. 907 ss., 1025 ss., 1163 ss.; 
Vanderkindere, Le Siècle des Artevelde, 2nd ed., Brussels, 1907, p. 311. 


CHAPTER Il 
THE CHURCH IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 


ManirestLy this general rout and subversion of intellect 
can be traced to more than one cause. Various influences, 
which we have attempted to define, contributed to it. Of 
them all, however, too great importance could not be attached 
to theories of independence which tend to alienate the civil 
from the spiritual power. 


I 


For a moment let us forget this separation, now an actual 
and universally recognised fact, and try to imagine what the 
principle of spiritual authority meant in the Middle Ages. 
Societies were then included within the scheme of a single 
organisation, the hierarchy of which ensured intimate co- 
hesion between all parties. Even kings were subject to this 
supreme authority. 

Now, in the fourteenth century, a blow was dealt at this 
principle. Attacks on the authority of the pope could not 
fail to have their repercussion from top to bottom of the 
social edifice, the very foundation of which was shaking. 

In France there was the downfall of Boniface VIII. 
and immediately afterwards the “Babylonian captivity.” 
The exile into Avignon is perhaps not, as is generally imagined, 
the period when the papacy came under subjection to the 
kings of France. All the same, papal authority cannot be 
exercised absolutely; with Clement V. it enters upon a policy 
of concessions and half-measures. 


Among the popes who succeed one another in Avignon, 
22 


CHURCH IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 23 


only one, John XXII., was really great. With indomitable 
energy he opposes alike the schism of the spirituels and the 
revolt of Italy, the King of England, Edward IIT., who is 
carrying on a devastating war in France, and Ludwig 
of Bavaria, whose victory at Mihldorf (1322) has just won 
for him the imperial throne. 

In this formidable conflict, it is nothing less than the 
spiritual peace of Europe that is at stake. No single measure 
taken by the pope fails to provoke an immediate response 
on the part of the ambitious monarch. He openly welcomes 
at court the spiritual rebels. To the pontiff’s interdict, in 
1324, over all the territories of the empire, the emperor 
answers by a manifesto in which John XXII. is called an 
“‘oppressor of the poor, an enemy of Christ and his apostles, 
one who endeavours, by falsehood and treachery, to crush 
out dire poverty.” The excommunicated Ludwig marches upon 
Rome, is crowned at Saint Peter’s, and solemnly declares 
“the priest Jacques de Cahors, who assumes the name of 
Pope John XXII.,” to have fallen from pontifical dignity. 

The Defensor pacis, by Marsilius of Padua, a book destined 
to become widely read, deals with these happenings and con- 
stitutes itself the vehicle of the new theories of independence. 
It repudiates any difference de jure divino between pope, 
bishop and priest. It recognises that the entire ecclesiastical 
hierarchy has only a potestas ordinis for administering the 
sacraments, reserving for the State alone the potestas juri- 
dictionis 1n fors externo. 

In vain do the popes subsequently attempt to restore 
their compromised authority. Men disappear, but ideas live 
and progress. Both the great combatants fall: John XXII. 
in 1334, Ludwig of Bavaria in 1347. 

Clement VI. hopes to rally to his side the new emperor 
by ensuring his election. This tutelage, however, appears 
too onerous for Charles IV., who, in his famous Golden 
Bull (1356), definitely breaks the ancient bonds between 
papacy and empire. 

On the other hand, in matters concerning Flanders, the 


24 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


policy of the Avignonese popes, by upholding the claims of 
Philippe le Bel, is distinctly opposed to him. Benoit XII. 
uses the entire weight of his diplomacy to prevent the 
alliance of the communers with England. 

Thus it is not surprising to find that the Flemish, at the 
time of the great schism, sided with Urban VI., the Roman 
pope, against Clement VII. in Avignon, and that they de- 
fended their choice on the battlefield. They did not give 
way before the crusade of the followers of Clement—a 
crusade headed by Charles VI. of France in person. Their 
tenacity, tested in many a fight, finally won for them recog- 
nition by Philippe le Hardi for their sympathy with the 
Urban party. 


IT 


The general policy of the Avignonese popes, clearly 
opposed to national aspirations which John XXII. regarded 
as the work of a demon (voce hostis iniqui), could not fail 
to meet with a powerful echo in the soul—religious by nature 
—of the Flemish and the Brabanters. 

These simple-minded men felt themselves abandoned by 
their spiritual pastors, who remembered them only for the 
purpose of laying them under an interdict or of excom- 
municating them. But though the spiritual interests of the 
Flemish were little considered by the pontiffs, their material 
resources had not escaped the notice of the treasurers of 
the court of Avignon. 

John XXII. had inaugurated a vast fiscal system through 
whose fine meshes nothing was allowed to slip. The land 
was constantly being traversed by collectores. These emis- 
saries levied many taxes: the decimae, the annatae, the procu- 
rationes, the jus spolit, the subsidia caritativa, the vacantes, etc. 

In short, under cover of so high an example, the great 
religious establishments still exercised a veritable financial 
jurisdiction over wider and wider territories, not even 
hesitating to levy execution on them. 


CEU IOC TANG 2 GUIS NOE CRN PU RY 025 


Documents are unanimous in pointing to the ravages of 
simony : 

Cupidity [says Boendale] has fastened upon the whole of the clergy. 
Benefices are not given to poor and deserving priests. No longer dare the 
preachers speak of covetousness, for they are all implicated and would 
be condemning themselves. Have not priests been known to draw up the 
wills of their sick parishioners, wills which they compel them to seal 
before administering the Sacrament ? Many begin to lament and moan if 
the dying man has bequeathed them nothing. I should never dare [he says] 
to appear before my Lord with such a will. This is how priests provide 
themselves with an income.! 


The good priests use similar language. We find a canon 
of Ypres, Jan Weert, who died in 1362, stigmatising, in 
tones which recall the biting satires of Dante, the undue 
influence employed in testamentary dispositions: 


Thus do pastors provide themselves with an income. They manufacture 
God in order to sell him, true Judases who would betray Jesus himself, 
were he still on earth. Preachers convert the word of God into traffic and 
merchandise, for they do not preach gratis. .. . Your prelates are Pilates. 
Sanctity consists not in appearances, in outer signs, but in really being 
saints. Tenderness of heart, soft speech, fervent prayer: this is what con- 
stitutes sanctity in the sight of God. Let priests and clergy, nuns and 
beguines, begin thus if they would lay claim to the title of saint. Let them 
know that convents and churches cannot bestow sanctity, for God is 
everywhere. And, as it is by purity of heart that we best serve God, 
we can serve him in all places: in the streets, on the mountains and in 
the valleys. 


Pious Ruysbroeck echoes these stern words: 


The rule, alas, is now observed in accordance with the glosses, not with 
the text. ... Poverty has been changed into as much magnificence, opulence 
and comfort as possible... . Foverty is indeed extolled in words, but deeds 
are not in conformity therewith.“ The religion which Christ and his 
disciples have instituted is destroyed by Satan. Christ and his apostles 
were poor in temporal and rich in spiritual goods, the prelates and priests 
who now govern the Church are rich in silver and poor in virtue... . 
Amongst the twelve only one was found to be a hypocrite, good outwardly 
and evil inwardly, whereas out of a hundred prelates and priests who 
govern the Church and live on the patrimony which Christ purchased 
with his precious blood, it might be possible to find one who, following 
the example of the apostles, imitates Christ within and without... . 
These sons of Judas who now govern the Church are hateful, greedy and 
rapacious. They have put on sale everything that is spiritual; if they had 
the power, they would sell to sinners both Christ and his forgiveness 
and eternal life, like their master who, for a fee, sold our Saviour to the 
quibbling Jews and hanged himself to his eternal damnation.3 


1 Dietsche Doctrinale, vv. 389-97. 2? The Seven Cloisters, chapter i. 
3 The Twelve Beguines, chapter lvi. 


26 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
Again: 


Annually the deans send into each parish visitors who make an in- 
quisition upon serious and public sins. If they find any who are guilty, 
they exact a fine; this is the penalty and the satisfaction due to sin. When 
the fine is paid, all is over; one can live in peace, and spend the whole 
year in the service of Satan. Even though they were to beg their bread, 
they must pay, but if they are rich and the matter is serious, they are 
compelled to give a great deal; as much money as possible is extorted from 
them. When the money is paid, they look upon themselves as free and 
quits; yea, they are free until the devil comes for their soul and makes 
them do penance in eternal hell. Thus each has what he desires: Satan, 
the soul; the bishop, the money; the poor imbeciles, their momentary 
satisfaction.! These greedy shepherds go about the towns and villages; 
they preach in words, but very little in deeds. And that is why their words 
produce so little fruit. They are more solicitous for the fleece than for 
the sheep, i.e. they have in mind their own personal profit, not the 
salvation of souls.? 


Abbots and monks, in the enjoyment of rich prebends, 
live idle, gluttonous lives: 


They shut themselves in their homes, eating and drinking at their 
pleasure. They have to be asked at night-time what they desire for the 
morrow, and how it must be prepared.3 


Luxury and extravagance go hand in hand: 


To-day the devil and vain men have found out something new: that 
which ought naturally to be black becomes a brownish material imitating 
hair-cloth. Grey clothes turn to a brown tinged with blue, green and red. 
White cannot be adulterated, it has to remain as it is. But whatsoever the 
colour, care is taken to choose the best wool. . . . And when the cloth is 
prepared, no one knows what shape or fashion to give it, in order to afford 
greater pleasure to the world and Satan. Sometimes it is so wide and ample 
that two or three garments could be made from it; sometimes so narrow, 
that one would think it were sewn on to the skin. Nuns wear short dresses 
only reaching the knee, knotted in front like the clothes of madmen. Or 
else they are so long that they have to be turned up very high, otherwise 
they will trail in the mud. And another kind of adornment is worn, adding 
to the folly now prevalent in the cloisters. This consists of silver-wrought 
girdles on each side whereof hang various tinsel objects which sound 
when one moves, the result being that the virgin or nun sets the whole 
thing tinkling when she walks, like a goat with tiny silver bells round its 
neck. The monks ride on horseback fully armed, wearing long swords like 
knights. But when confronted with Satan, with the world and their own 
evil impure passions and desires, they remain weaponless. . . . There are 
nuns who show themselves outwardly adorned, desirous of pleasing the 


1 The Spiritual Tabernacle (David), t. II. p. 181. 
* Jbid,, t. IT. p. 191. 
3 The Seven Cloisters, chapter viii. 


CHURCH IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY 27 


world rather than God; consequently, all that emanates from them is 
poison very pleasing to the devil, venom which they drink with him for 
all eternity in the foul dens of hell. In addition, the nuns must now adorn 
their cells with sumptuous beds, with carpets and luxurious quilts and 
cushions, just as though they still belonged to the world.! 


Everywhere the original rule is given up. Pierre de 
Herenthals, prior of the abbey of Floreffe about the year 
1350, bewails the fact in these terms: 

Alas! it seems at present that in many monasteries is being verified 
the saying that an undisciplined house shall fall. In many religious com- 
munities there is no longer seen to be any order or observance of rules, 
but rather disorder and a frightful state of irregularity. Jealousy has taken 
the place of love. Where peace and charity ought to reign, there is found 


only bitterness and murmuring, anger and indignation, insult, fickleness 
and depraved morals. 


Doubtless this depravity, this scandal of debauchery and 
impurity on the part of priests and nuns, dates back beyond 
the fourteenth century. It is known that Gregory VII. 
attempted to eradicate from within the Church the fright- 
ful licentiousness which prevailed. Sigismund, at the Council 
of Bale, proposed to repeal celibacy, which he regarded as 
the main cause of the discredit into which monasticism 
had fallen. 

Both in Flanders and in Brabant, however, the corrup- 
tion of the clergy was far from equalling that of the Italian 
monks or the Avignonese cardinals. But it had overstepped 
the indulgence which the Middle Ages readily allowed for 
loose morals, if we are to judge by the Flemish chroniclers, 
both religious and laic. Boendale, Jean de Dixmude, Ruys- 
broeck, archive documents as well as popular sotternyen, 
agree in branding with infamy the frequent rapes and 
abductions, the habitual intercourse between concubines 
and priests. 

A chronicler of 1367 relates that “prostitution was so 
general, both among the people and among the clergy, in 
the town of Gand, that the official of Tournoi ordered 
information of it to be given by aldermanic letters.” 


1 The Seven Cloisters, chapter xx. 


28 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
Gilles Li Muisis, abbé of Saint-Martin, in 1349, bewails 


the situation in these terms: 
The entire populace, clergy and laity, had fallen into such a state of 
unbridled licence that it was horrible to behold. . . . Unfortunately for the 


Church, it seemed as though the time had come for the fitting application | 
of the common proverb: “Like people, like priest.” 


As a rule, honest priests entered into a civil marriage 
upon which the Church closed its eyes. These papen die 
wijf badden gesworen were naturally more respected by the 
people than those who had taken a mistress: die tamien 
hadden ghecoren. 

On this subject Boendale is very sarcastic. As alder- 
manic secretary, he had had occasion to register many a 
legacy made by priests to their children or their focarza.} 

These irregular households [he writes] are customary. The priests bring 
up their children, provide rich marriages for them in town or country, or, 
should they enter the Church, they procure for them fat livings; the 
seigneurs listen to their counsel, they become treasurers and receivers. .. . 
There are many of the priests who are not content with one wife, nor with 
two ... nor with three. . . . If they think the moment favourable... 
whether she be married or not is of little consequence . . . they endeavour 


to win her, either by gifts or by entreaties. Yes, even if they were their 
own nieces, I fear they would have no conscientious scruples whatsoever. 


Gérard de Groote devoted to these fornicators a whole 
sermon, preached in the chapter-house of Utrecht in 1383. 


In an impetuous burst of eloquence, he exclaims: 

My lords and beloved brethren, having to speak to you of the exclusion 
and the correction of fornicating priests, I should not wish anyone to 
imagine that I have neither affection nor esteem for the priesthood. Far 
be such a thought from me. For there are two things in this connection: 
priest and fornicator. Now, just as I love and esteem the priest, so I hate 


and abhor the fornicator. My lords, the more august the priesthood, the 
more scandalous the dissoluteness therein. 


ITT 


Is it any wonder that, in the conflict which is to bring 
face to face the spiritual and the mendicant orders with the 
ecclesiastical authority, the people take sides against revellers 


1 The glossary of Du Cange defines the focaria as meretrix foco assidens. 


CHLURGHIIN POUREE ENT CENTURY: 26 


and spoilers and go to the extent of rioting in defence of their 
humble disinterested friends? They, at all events, had really 
taken the vow of poverty. They had linked on their cause 
to that of the people, accompanying the communers on the 
battlefield, nursing the sick, living and active witnesses to 
the goodness of God. These poor tramps, with their rough 
garments, were accused of propagating the heresies of the 
Beghards and the Lollards. A bull of John XXII. had given 
the authorities power to pursue them ad extirpandos ortho- 
doxae fidei inimicos et berbam tam noxiam pestiferam de horto 
dominico radiatus evellendam. But were not these the true 
defenders of orthodoxy, of that evangelical orthodoxy which 
regards love and indifference to worldly possessions as the very 
conditions of religious life? The people had no wider vision. 

Besides, these minor orders met a genuine need. Aban- 
doned by their real shepherds, towards whom would the 
wretched people have turned? The interdict weighed heavily 
on Flanders, and, had it not been for the humble friars, the 
innocent crowd of believers, left to pay for the quarrels of 
the great, the emperors and the popes, would have felt 
themselves forsaken by God himself. 


Their faith, however, amid sorrows and scandals, had 
remained intact. People seek solace in a refuge of peace, 
where souls can at last expand. With their innate good sense, 
the people refuse to associate religion with the vileness and 
turpitude of the monks. The necessity of an interior reform 
makes itself increasingly felt, and it is the purest and most 
devoted sons of the Church who raise their voices on behalf 
of such a reform. 

Frequently this revolt of conscience finds a terribly 
ironical expression. Thus it is related that, in 1365, in full 
public consistory, a cardinal adroitly let fall a letter, taking 
care that it should be picked up and taken to the pontiff. 
This epistle, signed by the name of the prince of darkness, 
was addressed to Clement VI. The demoniacal writer as- 
sured the pope, “son vicaire,” and the cardinals, ‘ses chers 


30 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


conseillers,” of his esteem, exhorting them to merit it still 


more fully by their scorn of the holy and impoverished life 
of the apostles. The letter ended as follows: 


Your proud and haughty mother salutes you, along with your sisters, 
avarice, immodesty and the rest of the vices, your relatives and friends, 
who boast that they are everywhere prosperous through your aid. Given 
in the centre of hell, in the presence of our chief officers.! 

More and more distinctly are heard the rumblings, 
prophetic of awful—though purifying—days to come. Every 
one is convinced that, as Boendale says, the cowl does not 
. make the monk, and glimpses are caught of the relations 
that unite the pure Gospel of Christ to secular sanctity. 


Die cappe en maect niet den monc, 
Noch die mutse den canonc. 

The voices of the prophets ring out, proclaiming the 
imminent downfall of a faithless and corrupt Church, and 
their accents, like thunder in the valleys, grow louder and 
louder with the innumerable echoes to which they give rise 
in the hearts of men. 

This was no separatist movement, as has been thought, 
no revolt against the Church itself. The harsh-voiced prophets 
all protest their attachment to the ancient faith; their indig- 
nation springs from their love. Therefore these protesting 
tendencies must not be regarded as preludes of the Reforma- 
tion in the sixteenth century: it is from within that Ruys- 
broeck, Boendale, Li Muisis and their disciples aim at 
regenerating the Church. Still, one might be mistaken on 
this point when one reads such declarations as these: 

It has been said in former days—That the clergy would be expelled— 
And that the Church will suffer—Wholly because of the clergy—So that 
popes and cardinals—Bishops and monks all together—Affrighted will 
hide their tonsure—And seek shelter everywhere—Otherwise the people 
would beat them.? 

Guillaume Friesen, of Maestricht, foretells in 1360 that 


all the clergy will be humiliated, the monasteries destroyed and the monks 
reduced to abject poverty. Hounded by all, they will no longer be able to 


1 Altmeyer, Les précurseurs de la Réforme aux Pays-Bas, Brussels, 1886, 
p. 198. De Berault-Bercastel, Histoire de l'Eglise, t. XIV, pp. 129-30. 
3 Jan’s Teestye, vv. 3682 ss. 


CHURCH'IN FOURTEENTHCENTURY 31 


find refuge anywhere. No longer will prelates go about in silk and purple. 
The Church of Rome will disappear. Popes, cardinals and bishops will be 
despoiled of everything, because of their pride, their avarice, and many 
other vices. Scarcely will they be left the wherewithal to cover their 
nudity. They will be the hue and cry of the masses, and will remain ex- 
posed to this terrible chastisement until they correct their mode of life, 
until, sincerely repentant, they confess their sins and ask God’s forgive- 
ness, promising to live in all the simplicity of the early Christian era. 

This scandalous state of things and the complaints of 
the better element of the populace were bound to meet with 
a profound echo in the naturally religious soul of the Flemish 
and the Brabanters. Deep in the human conscience is being 
enacted an entire drama, on which light is not wholly forth- 
coming, and which really culminates, behind the imposing 
façade of the Church, in the disintegration of spiritual unity. 

Fourteenth-century mysticism undoubtedly sprang from 
this interior crisis. It offers itself as a providential help to 
the state of widespread inanition into which the souls of 
men had fallen. By doing away with unworthy intermedi- 
aries between the soul and its God, it rescued religion from 
the general discredit that weighed it down, and offered piety 
a refuge into which the din of strife and scandal could not 
penetrate. We may state without exaggeration that, by 
satisfying the strong religious aspirations of the time, it 
ensured the continuity of the Gospel tradition . . . a 
tradition that threatened to be overwhelmed by the raging 
torrent. 

Not all, however, were capable of following mysticism 
on to the heights to which it summoned the tempest-beaten 
masses, or of divorcing faith and Church, of gathering the 
perfume and leaving behind the mire. Hasty generalisers 
and the spiritually blind, as well as materialistic monks 
who regarded the rites and ceremonies of the Church as 
comprising the whole of religion, declared at once that all 
was lost. And, as secular support suddenly failed them, 
these despairing prelates fell into a condition of general 
laxity and decline. 

Others, no longer finding light in doctrinal authority, 
communed with themselves and sought in their own con- 


20 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


science for a solution of their religious aspirations. It was 
just at this moment that the heterodox sects, in the decline 
of the principle of authority, responded wonderfully to this 
individualistic spirit. They abounded everywhere, gathering 
up the wrecks, which were astonishingly alive and active, and 
associating spirituality with the strangest moral distortions. 

The rôle played by these sects in the religious drama 
being enacted throughout the fourteenth century is so 
important in dealing with the history of the thought of 
. Ruysbroeck, that we must now examine it in detail. 


CHAPTER III 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 


I 


Tue historian who studies medieval piety is especially struck 
by the extreme mobility of its manifestations. The empire of 
a doctrinal religion which directs the impetuous stream of 
religious feeling within the rigid banks of imposed belief 
seems to be abolished. Never has this feeling been stronger. 
Nor has it ever been less disciplined. The Middle Ages was 
pre-eminently the period of individualism, an individualism 
that must be connected with the sense of religious unrest 
which more or less torments the minds of all men. 

It has been well said that the religious society of the 
Middle Ages “is not to be compared with a great peaceful 
stream flowing quietly between its appointed banks, but is 
rather a torrent in which stagnant water and whirling rapids 
alternate, and is with considerable difficulty held in by 
continually shaken and unsettled dikes.” 

Far from being submissive to the Church, the Middle 
Ages seeks a spiritual refuge apart from it. Unable to find, 
in the stormy present, any safe shelter, it constructs for 
itself its own faith. Or rather, despairing of finding without 
help the key to the great mysteries, the secret of destiny, 
nature and sin, in a bold revival of hope it makes appeal 
to the future. 

In decadent Rome, taedium vitae was the venomous 
flower of corruption and luxury. Now, however, the “tired 
of life” feeling has a nobler origin. It was born of the des- 
perate confronting of the Gospel ideal with imperfect human 
realisations, of the spectacle of a world given up to violence 

33 


34 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and disorder, a world from which it seemed that God had 
fled. And, as though the debauchery of men were not enough 
to overwhelm the soul, Nature in travail appeared, with 
terrible and unexpected phenomena, to ally herself with 
the work of terror and brutality. 

A finibus terrae ad te clamavi dum anxiaretur! This 
despairing cry of Abélard is the wail of an entire epoch. 
But what God could listen to such a plaint? 

The very face of God was veiled, hardened, as it were. 
_ Arms were extended towards the Lover of Justice, not 
towards the Comforter; towards the awful Avenger of the 
Apocalypse, not towards the pitying Host of the holy love- 
feasts. And the reason why life was still tolerated was because 
judgment, which would meet, once for all, the distracted 
longings after justice, seemed imminent. 

In this respect the Middle Ages comes nearer to the early 
Christian centuries than does the present age. We have flung 
into the background all eschatological speculations and have 
given the place of honour to those moral exigencies, those 
broad claims of conscience, which we regard, in the Gospel, 
as the one eternal and unassailable element. But the Middle 
Ages could not yet liberate itself from the letter of 
things. The precise declarations of Christ, while justifying 
the sorrows and pains of history, afforded wider scope for 
the drama of salvation. The Cross left unfinished the Redemp- 
tion, which was supposed to find its definitive fulfilment in 
the dissolution of all things. The Apocalypse, assiduously 
read—that stupendous book which was said to have been 
dictated by the Holy Spirit himself to the beloved disciple 
on a sea-beaten rock—spoke to the imagination differently 
from the Gospel records. In its highly-coloured imagery, its 
decisive dualism, its extremely vivid symbols, it was moulded, 
so to speak, on mediæval thought. Nor did successive dis- 
appointments permit of any authoritative statement of the 
hope which was kept alive by circumstantial calculations. 

In addition to which, the great Doctors themselves shared 
in this kind of obsidional fever. Had not Augustine, while 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 35 


distrusting the precise statements, continually being contra- 
dicted, in which paltry-minded individuals took delight,} 
devoted two books of the City of God to a consideration 
of the great day of wrath? 

Of necessity, this materialistic view of things, beneath 
the pressure of reiterated contradictions, was bound to 
become spiritualised. 

This was largely the work of Scotus Erigena. By sub- 
stituting for cosmic revolution the Neoplatonist idea of the 
return of creation in God, he set free the believing soul from 
materialistic terrors, without robbing it of hope. By con- 
templation he opened for it the doors of the eternal and 
invisible Church; though by doing so he laid stress upon 
the inadequacy and the secondary rôle of the visible Church. 

Such audacity of thought could have no other conse- 
quence than what has rightly been called spiritual anarchy. 
The Church was not deceived on the matter. And when in 
1205 it flung on to the same pile the writings of David de 
Dinant and the De divisione naturae of Scotus Erigena, it 
gave proof of a remarkable knowledge of the historical 
filiation of heresy. 

We will now on our side restore this filiation. 


$ 1. Great developments of ideas do not come about in 
a day. Their germ needs first a period of obscurity, the 
symptoms of which will only at a much later date have 
their true meaning. It would seem as though the spirit were 
awaiting a propitious hour and were anxious in advance to 
secure future reserves for itself. Sometimes its manifesta- 
tions are timid and uncertain, imperfect outlines over which 
silence speedily draws a veil. Then suddenly, and often 
simultaneously in several places, it issues from its darkness, 
this time endowed with a vitality and a power capable of 
victoriously meeting hostile forces. The period of incubation 
is followed by the militant era. 


1Quae omnia quidem veniura esse credendum est; sed quibus modis et quo 
oydine veniant, magis tunc docebit rerum experientia, quam nunc ad perfectum 
hominum intelligentia valet consequi. De Civit., lib. XX. cap. xxx. 


36 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


The manifestation of spiritual anarchy in the Middle 
Ages followed no other law. After smouldering for two or 
three centuries, it first assumes form at the end of the twelfth 
century in the movement with which the name of Joachim 
de Flore is associated: the eternal Gospel. 

In this doctrine, truth to tell, there was nothing par- 
ticularly subversive. The popes who honoured the Calabrian 
monk with their friendship, Lucius II]. and Clement IIL., 
shared the indignation of the seer against the corrupt state 
of the clergy. The prediction of the disappearance of the 
~ Church they could not regard as insubordination, for here 
the Church would but share in the lot that befell all things. 
Even the declarations of Joachim regarding the musticus 
intellectus, which alone was capable of grasping the eternal 
signification of the Gospel, but faintly skirted the fringe of 
insubordination and heresy. But the gentle prophet probably 
did not suspect this. Neither a tribune nor a revolutionary, 
he was mainly concerned with living the Gospel: ever the 
best way of converting men to it. More than once was he 
seen to share his garments with the poor, to nurse lepers 
and take the dying to his breast. His true disciple is not the 
restless and stormy heresiarch, but rather the poverello of 
Assisi. The saint, whom Dante placed in his Paradise between 
Saint Anselm and Saint Bonaventura, died in 1202, repeating 
the words: “Love one another, as the Lord Jesus has 
loved us.” 

How comes it, then, that the eternal Gospel must be looked 
upon as one of the most active ferments in the dissolution of 
Christianity ? From the fact that enthusiastic disciples, think- 
ing they are following in the lines of the master, generally 
go beyond him. 

From the outset the Fratricelli, dissenters from the Order 
of Saint Francis, made use of the holy Calabrian’s name 
against the popes who had sanctioned the successive exten- 
sions made in the rules. 

Above all, however, the theoretical supporters of inde- 
pendence were able to draw unexpected consequences from 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 37 


the idyllic dream of a golden age which Joachim had indulged 
on his peaceful mountains. 

Indeed, a little book appeared in 1254: Liber introduc- 
torius 1n Evangelium aeternum. In it could be read such 
propositions—which the humble Joachim de Flore would 
certainly have not recognised—as the following: 

__ Jesus Christ and his apostles were not perfect in the contemplative 
life. The understanding of the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures has 
not been entrusted to the pope. What has been entrusted to him is but 
the understanding of the literal meaning. If he permits himself to decide 
upon the spiritual meaning, then his judgment is rash, no account must 
be taken of it. The doctrine of Joachim repeals both Testaments; the 


gospel of Christ has not been the real Gospel; it has not been able to build 
the true Church, it has led no one to perfection. 


There was a great scandal, an echo of which may be 
found in the Roman de la Rose. Here Jean de Meung approves 
of the action of the University in burning the insolent volume: 

Ung livre de par le grant diable, 
Dit  Evangile pardurable 


Que le Saint-Esperit menistre 
Si com il aparoit au tistre. 


The principal author suspected, Gérard de Borgo San- 
Donnino, miserably perished in a subterranean dungeon, by 
order of Saint Bonaventura. 

But ideas cannot be imprisoned. Driven back in one 
direction, they make a new channel underground and spring 
up in another place, sometimes far away from their source. 

After all, ecclesiastical insubordination found soil for 
development ready prepared by the relics of the old 
oriental Manichæism. For this it is that survives under the 
common name of Catharism, uniting a number of variations. 
Heirs of the Paulicians and of the dualistic Bogomiles whom 
the Emperor Alexis was unable to subjugate, we find in rest- 
less motion throughout Europe, Albanenses, Concorrezanes, 
Arnoldists, Albigenses, Patarins, and others, who had all 
revolted against the hierarchy of the Church, and claimed, 
by virtue of a mysterious sacrament, the title and the preroga- 
tives of initiates. They professed that souls were divine spirits 

F 


38 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


that had fallen from heaven into a material body made by 
the Evil One: hence their fierce asceticism, the prohibition of 
all carnal intercourse, abstention from meat and eggs, even 
to the extent of suicide, whereby they broke through their 
prison-house of flesh (endura). 


§ 2. In France, a country favourable to systematisation, 
the new spirit made its way into the very heart of the 
University. It found philosophic expression in the writings 
of two professors of the University of Paris: David de Dinant 
and Amaury de Bène, who were teaching at the beginning 
of the thirteenth century. 

We can acquaint ourselves with the ideas of David de 
Dinant only through Saint Thomas, who supplies a lengthy 
refutation of them. David had set forth his heretical proposi- 
tions in the form of quatrains, the Quaternul:. In attributing 
to him another work, De Tomis vel de Divisionibus, Albertus 
Magnus would appear to have gravely erred. 

A study of the propositions raised by Saint Thomas 
enables us to recognise the dual influence of Scotus Erigena 
and the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle’s physics and 
metaphysics. It is impossible, however, to say how far 
David carried his doctrines; does he even justify the accusa- 
tion of pantheism? This could not be affirmed on the word 
of Saint Thomas, who declares that David “‘was so mad as 
to profess that God is nothing else than first matter.” David, 
in particular, would appear to have paid for the philosophical 
authorities whose names he invokes. Albertus Magnus cites 
a number of these authorities: Anaximenes, who taught the 
essential unity of all things, the poet Orpheus, Lucan and 
Seneca, whose proposition—quid est Deus ? Mens universi— 
David appears to have reproduced. The fact remains that the 
unfortunate professor and fourteen of his pupils atoned for 
their audacity in the flames, on the very spot which is now 
occupied by the Halles, condemnation against them being 
pronounced by the Council of Paris in 1210. 

The name of Amaury de Bène is generally associated with 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 39 


that of David de Dinant, though it is impossible to define 
clearly the relations between the two. Which was the master 
of the other? Was there even any connection between the 
two systems? Forced to recant, Amaury died heartbroken 
in 1204. His trial, however, was resumed in 1209, and, con- 
demnation being ratified, his bones were exhumed and buried 
on the high-road. 

The inculpation of pantheism seems indeed justified in 
the doctrine of Amaury: nemo potest esse salvus nist credat 
se esse membrum Christi. Everything inclines us to the belief 
that the interpretation of the apostolic word by Amaury 
reduced to extreme limits the human personality. This 
doctrine, along with that of Scotus Erigena, led naturally to 
the identity of God and the universe. This was the sole 
motive of Amaury’s condemnation. 

So far we fail to see the relation between these doctrines 
and the development of the eternal Gospel. In the first place, 
chronology is opposed to it, and, again, the two systems 
move on altogether different planes: Joachimism is above all 
else realistic; the Parisian doctrines depend solely on specu- 
lation. It was the work of the disciples to combine the two 
teachings, and, by carrying to extremes the premises of 
the doctrine, to work out a real libertarian system. 


§ 3. It is easy to glimpse the moral and religious conse- 
quences resulting from the propositions of Amaury and 
David. If matter is the universal principle, if God himself 
is but the essential form of matter, then individuality loses 
all consistency, good and evil lose all reality. The appetites, 
as emanations of matter made divine, are legitimate and 
must not be subjected to constraint. Further, the satisfac- 
tion of the passions can only facilitate the identification of 
the individual with the Deity. 

Neither Amaury nor David had any idea of the far- 
reaching effects of their doctrine; but those who subse- 
quently used the names of the condemned masters were 
better logicians. 


4.0 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


The votaries found a scheme ready prepared for the 
reception of this new system: the theory of the three ages 
which the disciples who had deviated from Joachim de Flore 
had popularised. Indeed, it is impossible to designate too 
clearly the part played by apocalyptic preoccupations among 
the Amalricians. 

When Guillaume l’Orfévre, the prophet of the sect, in 
the year 1210, called upon Maitre Rodolphe de Nemours, in 
order to attract him to himself, he speculates on the stirring 
drama of the latter days: item prophetabat, says Césaire 
d’Heisterbach, quod infra quinque annos istae quattuor plagae 
evenire debent. Fire from heaven will descend super praelatos 
ecclesiae qui sunt membra Antichristi. Dicebat enim quia Papa 
esset Antichristus et Roma, Babylon. The era of the Son is 
at an end; henceforth the Holy Spirit will control all things 
on to the final consummation. 


The kingdom of the Spirit, at all events during the early 
years of the movement, does not appear to have implied 
carnal freedom among the Amalricians. The fusion that had 
come about at Lyons between the Cathari and our votaries 
even previous to 1225 rather points to common ascetic pre- 
occupations. Thus too much credit must not be attributed 
to the accusations of Guillaume le Breton and Césaire 
d’Heisterbach. A pretext for orgies is easily seen in the 
secret meetings of the initiates. Even though the accusation 
were justified, it would prove nothing against the doctrine. 
It might be applied equally well against the accusers and 
against Catholicism, if we are to believe Gerson, who violently 
stigmatises the shameful profanations of the sanctuary.? 

Documents, law-suit reports, registered confessions, etc., 
afford abundant proof that the disciples of Amaury after- 
wards degenerated very rapidly and that they became what 

1 Dialogus miraculorum, t. I. col. 1851, p. 305. 

* Neither the presence of Jesus Christ nor respect for the altars prevented 
ecclesiastics from indulging in shameful practices even in the cathedrals: im- 


pudentissima dissolutione ab ecclesiasticis talia fiunt qualia vel scribere horror est 
vel etiam cogitare. Oper., I. pp. 121, 122; III. pp. 309, 310. 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY AI 


their accusers represented them to be. Still, it would not be 
right to anticipate history in this fashion. We will simply 
remember that these doctrines contained the germ of the 
most abominable deviations from a sense of morality. The 
perfecti readily imagine that the ideal lies in absolute liberty, 
and that complete detachment is realised not in the restric- 
tion but in the gratification of vice. To prove this, we need 
only go back to the licentious Gnostic sects, the Carpocratians 
and others. 

In France the doctrine was mainly spread by small 
pamphlets, circulating from hand to hand. Doubtless the 
persecution to which the Amalricians were subjected brought 
about the disappearance of these precious testimonies, for 
not one circular has been found. Heresy, indeed, being 
vigorously combated, soon disappeared almost totally from 
the land. Nearly all its partisans seem to have taken refuge 
in the Rhine districts, for it is there that we shall find them 
and witness the transformation of the Amaury doctrine into 
a distinctly subversive system, one directed against the most 
elementary principles of Christian morals. 


This licentious heresy is known as the doctrine of 
the New Spirit. Its filiation with regard to the Amalrician 
system is known to us through an anonymous compilation 
of the thirteenth century. Here we are informed that the 
Amalrician doctrine had been resumed at Strasbourg at the 
beginning of the thirteenth century by a certain Ortlevus 
or Ortlibus. Hence its votaries were called Ortlibenses or 
Ortlibari1, though this appellation speedily fell into oblivion. 
It was replaced by the name of disciples of the New Spirit. 

The diffusion of this doctrine, favoured by troublous 
times that are propitious to religious risings, was extra- 
ordinarily rapid. Above all, the new ideas found a wonder- 
ful vehicle of propagandism: associations of Beghards, from 
Belgium, who, compelled by poverty and wretchedness, had 
constituted themselves distinct both from the laity and from 
the Church. Consisting almost wholly of women at first, these 


42 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


pitiful bands traversed the country crying out: Bread, for 
God’s sake, bread! Thus did these mendicants give a name 
to their association. In English and in modern Flemish we 
have the expressions, to beg, bedelen, corresponding to the 
verb beggen.1 

To these wretched starvelings wealthy citizens soon 
offered houses which were called béguinages. Here the women 
lived in common, after taking a vow of chastity, and devoted 
themselves to the nursing of the sick. At Louvain, in 1220, 
the men formed themselves into an association of laic 
brothers, spending their time in deeds of charity, such as 
keeping watch over contagious cases or burying the dead. 
They soon adopted the rope girdle of the Franciscans, for 
which they had to pay the price of attack by the Fratricell. 
These new elements almost completely changed the character 
of these associations, which henceforth adopted a subversive 
attitude against the Church. Beghards and beguines were, 
above all, permeated with the doctrines of the New Spirit 
so completely, indeed, that the documents of the Inquisition 
make no distinction between the terms beghards, beguines, 
little brothers, and votaries of the New Spirit. A few years 
sufficed to bring all this about, as testified by the Liber 
Manualis of Albertus Magnus, a sort of inquisitorial formulary 
written in 1260, the chief propositions of which have survived 
in various manuscripts. 


IT 


From this time we shall be confronted with a coherent 
system, whose applications, from the middle of the thir- 


teenth century, are seen to be identical, in Swabia as in 
Rhenish soil and in Flanders. 


1 The derivation of beghard from Saint Begge or from Lambert de Bêgue 
seems to us unjustified. The same may be said of the explanation given by 
Latomus and Hoybergius, who connect the term with the Flemish verb beginnen, 
to begin: tanquamincipientes et aliquam viam religionis inchoantes qua deinde 
ad ordinem religiosum sub aliqua regula approbata militantentranseant. Corsen- 
donca, Antwerp, 1654, p. 67. 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 43 


In retracing the main lines of this system in which the 
extreme consequences of the doctrines of Amaury are col- 
lected, we are no longer reduced to conjecture. 

The documents are unanimous: the Free Spirit—for such 
is the name which the votaries of the New Spirit have adopted 
for their doctrine—is a moral and religious attitude which 
consists of nothing less than enfranchisement from all con- 
straint. The Free Spirit brother claims absolute freedom 
towards any duty imposed by the moral and the social 
laws, or by religious authority. Equally does he repudiate 
private ownership and conjugal fidelity, the divine commands 
and the obligations of conscience. 

“What is freedom of the Spirit?” Conrad Kannler is asked by Eber- 
nard de Freyenhausen the inquisitor. 

“It exists when all remorse of conscience ceases and man can no longer 
sin (quod totaliter cessat remorsus conscientiae et quod redditur impeccabtlis).”’ 

“Hast thou attained to this stage of perfection ?”’ 

“Yes, so much so that I can advance in grace, for I am one with God 
and God is one with me.” 

“Ts a brother of the Free Spirit obliged to obey authority ?”’ 

“No, he owes obedience to no man, nor is he bound by the precepts 
of the Church. If any one prevents him from doing as he pleases, he has 
the right to kill him. He may follow all the impulses of his nature; he does 
not sin in yielding to his desires.”’ 1 

Thus we are dealing with a veritable anarchist insurrec- 
tion, set up against authority of every kind. All the same, 
we should be wrong in accusing of immorality all the brothers 
of the Free Spirit. Apart from those lost to all sense of shame, 
who regarded the doctrine as an opportunity to give free 
rein to all the cravings of the flesh, there were certainly pure 
disinterested apostles and ascetics who had reached a far 
different conclusion. If man is God, he should live like God, 
free himself from carnal affections by renunciation and the 
subjection of his passions, and give a predominant place to 
the spiritual element in his nature. 

In this connection, Ruysbroeck, whom we are now about 
to bring on to the stage, was far more just than the majority 
of his contemporaries. The freedom of the spirit, which he so 

1R. Allier, Les Frères du Libre-Esprit, in Religions et Sociétés, Paris, 1905, 
P. 135. 


44. RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


strongly opposed, appears to him almost exclusively as 
heresy, intellectual and religious error. 


At the beginning of the fourteenth century the sect 
appears in Hainaut under the name of Porretistes, the 
disciples of a beguine, Marguerite Porrette. This enthusiast 
had written a book containing the following proposition: 
“The soul that has annihilated itself in the love of its 
‘Creator can accord to nature everything it desires.” Such 
audacity cost the heresiarch her death by burning at Gréve, 
on the Ist of June 1310. The Porretist doctrine, however, 
was resumed a few years later by the mysterious Bloemar- 
dinne, to whom we shall devote a special chapter. 

It is possible to obtain, from information supplied by 
Ruysbroeck, a very consistent picture of the aberrations of 
the sect of the Free Spirit in Belgium during the fourteenth 
century. 

First there was the penchant to idleness, scorn of all 
activity, and, as a consequence, a riotous abandonment to 
every passion. “For man to be perfect,” they say, “it is 
sufficient that he follow the inclinations that God has im- 
planted in his heart. That is the only way to return to a pure 
and natural life, to that close union with God which man 
possessed before the Fall.” Next there was an irreducible 
opposition to the Church and to a constituted hierarchical 
society. Finally there was outright pantheism, without dis- 
guise of any kind. In The Twelve Beguines Ruysbroeck likens 
these four currents to the four sins against the Holy Spirit, 
against the Father, against the Son, and against the Church. 

These men maintain outright that they are of the essence 
of God, superior to all distinctions, and that they realise a 
state of vacuity which is veritable non-being. This is why 
they do not work, for the primordial essence of God (grond- 
wesen) is also inactive. But see in what manner they mean 
to practise this repose: they remain quietly seated, free of 
all activity, whether interior or exterior. Thus they are 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 45 


thrown back upon themselves. An unrestrained appetite 
attracts them wholly towards an interior delectation and a 
spiritual satisfaction that are purely natural. This is what is 
called spiritual lewdness, for it is an unrestrained propensity 
to natural love. Replete also with spiritual pride and self- 
will, these men sometimes propel themselves so passionately 
towards what they desire, that they frequently go astray 
and some of them fall under the power of Satan. 

Imagining themselves God, nothing to them is either 
good or bad provided they can dispense with images, dis- 
cover and possess their own being in a state of absolute void. 
Liberated from faith and grace, from the practice of every 
virtue, they claim to live superior to all modes, free of all, 
lost in the void as when they were non-existent, renouncing 
all knowledge, all love, all will, all desire, all virtuous prac- 
tices, in order to be empty of all things. They also state 
that their soul is of the substance of God, and that at death 
this soul will return to divine substance, just as water drawn 
from the spring in a pitcher returns to the spring when the 
pitcher is emptied. Thus, in their folly, they imagine that 
all reasonable creatures, good or evil, angels or demons, will 
at the last day become a single modeless essence, and they 
assert that this essence will be God, of blissful nature, devoid 
of knowledge and will. They call this perfect poverty of 
spirit, though in very truth it is but an infernal and dia- 
bolical poverty. . . . Heathen and Jew, the most perverse 
of mortals can indulge in this vain idleness, if they succeed 
in crushing all remorse for sin, in isolating themselves from 
images and from activity of any kind. Then one falls into 
almost incurable spiritual pride and self-complacency, think- 
ing one possesses that which one has never even approached. 

The identity claimed by these heretics between them- 
selves and God leads them into a repulsive pantheism. 
What, indeed, is it that they say? 


Whilst I was in my eternal essence, I had no God. But that which I 
was I willed, and that which I willed I was. It is of my own will that I 
have become (van minen vrien wille bin ic gheworden ende uutghegaen). . .. 


46 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Without me, God would have neither knowledge nor will nor power, for 
it is I, with God, who have created my own personality and all things. 
From my hand are suspended heaven, earth and all creatures. And what- 
ever honour is paid to God, it is to me that it is paid, for in my essential 
being I am by nature God. For myself, I neither hope nor love, and I have 
no faith, no confidence in God. I have nothing to pray for, nothing to 
implore, for I do not render honour to God above myself. For in God 
there is no distinction, neither Father nor Son nor Holy Spirit . . . since 
with this God I am one, and am even that which he is... and which, 
without me, he is not. 


They also say: 


That which Christ is, we are; like him we are eternal life and wisdom, 
begotten with him of the Father in the divine nature, born with him in 
time, after the human nature. Accordingly we are one with him, God and 
man in every way. All that God has given to him he has given to us also, 
and that no less than to him. That he be now born of a virgin is a matter 
of indifference to us; it is an accident to which is attached neither sanctity 
nor happiness, which possesses no more importance than the fact that we 
others are born of ordinary women. In addition, Christ was sent only to 
devote himself to the practice of active life, in order to serve me, to live 
and die for me. I was sent for the contemplative life, which is superior 
to the active, a state which doubtless Christ, like myself, would have 
attained had he lived longer. Whatsoever honour is paid to him, it is also 
paid to me. In the Sacrament, when his body is raised on the altar, I too 
am raised. ... For I am with him, flesh and blood, one single person who 
cannot be separated. 


There can be no doubt but that such doctrines led to 
moral depravation and insubordination; to a state of dis- 
soluteness and licentiousness, first of all. No one, they say, 
not even God, is capable of giving them anything, or taking 
anything from them; for, in their opinion, they have tran- 
scended all religious practices, all virtues. . . . Hence they 
go so far as to say that, so long as man has a tendency to 
virtue and desires to do God’s very precious will, he is still 
imperfect, being preoccupied with the acquiring of things. 

. Therefore they think they can never either believe in 
virtues, or have additional merit, or commit sins. . . . Con- 
sequently they are able to consent to every desire of the 
lower nature, for they have reverted to a state of innocence, 
and laws no longer apply to them. Hence, if the nature is 
prone to that which gives it satisfaction, and if, in resisting 
it, mental idleness must, however slightly, be either checked 

1 The Twelve Beguines, pp. 52-3. * [bid., pp. 54-61. 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 47 


or distracted, they obey the instincts of nature. They are 
all forerunners of Antichrist, preparing the way for in- 
credulity of every kind. They claim, indeed, to be free, 
outside of commandments and virtues. To say what pleases 
them and never to be contradicted, to retain their own will 
and be in subjection to no one: that is what they call spiritual 
freedom. Free in their flesh, they give the body what it 
desires. . . . To them, the highest sanctity for man consists 
in following, without compulsion and in all things, his natural 
instinct, so that he may abandon himself to every impulse 
in satisfying the demands of the body. . . . They wish to 
sin and indulge in their impure practices without fear or 
qualms of conscience. Nevertheless, adds Ruysbroeck in fair- 
ness, such people are not met with in great numbers. 

And now with regard to insubordination. 

In their shameless licentiousness, they come to scorn all 
rules. Consequently they reject science, work, contempla- 
tion, love, property, Church practices and sacraments, the 
life, teaching, passion and death of Jesus, divine characters. 
... Eager for freedom, they will obey no one... neither pope 
nor bishop nor priest . . . for they are completely weaned of 
everything connected with holy Church. Superior to all the 
sacraments of the Church, they neither need nor want them. 
They ridicule and remember nothing as regards ecclesias- 
tical practices and customs or the writings of the saints. In 
their own idea, they have transcended all things which 
they recognise as necessary only for the imperfect. Certain 
of them even are so bold and inveterate in their simplicity 
that they remain unoccupied and care naught for the works 
of God or for the Holy Scriptures, as though not a letter 
had ever been written. They will neither teach nor be taught 
by anyone, they wish to criticise but to accept no blame 
themselves, to command but never to obey. 

It has been thought that in these characteristics were to 
be found four distinct heresies combated by Ruysbroeck, or 
rather separate currents of one and the same subversive 
heresy: a rationalistic current, a pantheistic current, and a 


48 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


naturalistic current. But what Ruysbroeck teaches us coin- 
cides so nearly with what we know from other quarters of 
the brothers of the Free Spirit, that we must not hesitate 
to ascribe to one and the same sect the manifestations 
observed by Ruysbroeck. 

He would appear to have despaired of bringing these 
ranters to saner views: 

They will die rather than retract a single point in what they put for- 


ward. But when death comes, they will see to what their base turpitude 
has brought them. They call themselves happy: 


Happy like them is the sleeping dog, 

Dreaming he has a morsel of meat in his mouth. 
He wakes, and lo! he has nothing; 

And that is what happens to them.! 


When the hour comes for them to be filled with bitter grief and mortal 
anguish, they are pursued by phantoms, they are terrified and dismayed 
within. Then they lose their calm tranquillity and fall into such a state of 
despair that they are inconsolable. And they perish like mad dogs. 


This heresy, which the mendicant Beghards, driven from 
diocese to diocese, brought from Germany into Belgium, 
became all the more rapidly acclimatised from the fact that 
it tallied with the still active survivals of Tanchelm’s doctrine. 
This doctrine seems to have been of a particularly social and 
revolutionary character. If, however, we are to believe a con- 
temporary, we might find in it all the pantheistic tendencies 
of the Free Spirit: 

Tanchelm said that if Christ was God because he was in possession of 
the Holy Spirit, he himself also was God by the same right, since he had 
received the fulness of the Holy Spirit. In this way he succeeded so well 
in taking possession of men’s souls that he was worshipped as God by some 
of his partisans, and gave the stupid people to drink of the water in which 


he had bathed, which, he asserted, was a holier and more efficacious 
sacrament than the water of baptism.’ 


A century after the death of the heretic, who was assas- 
sinated in 1115, his doctrine received a new lease of life 


1 The Twelve Beguines, p. 38. 

2 The Highest Truth, chapter iv. 

3 Letter of the canons of Utrecht to the archbishop of Cologne, quoted by 
Gens, Hist. de la ville d Anvers, pp. 33, 34. Regarding the doctrine of Tanchelm, 
see a remarkable study by Janssen in the Annales de l’Académie d'Archéologie 
de Belgique, t. XXIII. pp. 374 ss. 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 49 


under Cornelis, a canon of Notre-Dame of Antwerp. Cornelis 
regarded poverty as the one supreme virtue, claiming that 
its possession gave man the right to sin with impunity. 
‘ As rust disappears beneath the action of fire, so all sin is 
dissipated by the virtue of poverty. A poor courtesan is 
more acceptable in the sight of God than a chaste person 
possessed of property.” 1 He declared omnes religiosos esse 
damnatos, because of their opulent living, and these com- 
munistic ideas won him the favour of the people in spite of 
his condemnation by the bishop of Cambrai. Most of his 
partisans, in addition to the social ideas of their master, 
adopted the Manichæan or Albigensian heresy which Gon- 
dolphe, an Italian missionary, had introduced about the 
year 1025 into Belgium, where it had prospered greatly. 

In the fourteenth century the heretical effervescence 
seems to have reached its highest point. Was it possible 
to surpass the eccentricities and the pride of the votaries 
of the Free Spirit? And yet new fanatics now appear. These 
are first the flagellants, and then the dancers, who are not 
heretics, though their practices were speedily to bring them 
into opposition with the Church. 


III 


Allusion to these practices may be found in the Treatises 
of the Four Temptations, wherein Ruysbroeck condemns those 
who think they can attain to genuine contemplation by 
means of ridiculous mortifications, absurd poses and con- 
tortions of the body. He connects them with the sect of the 
Free Spirit and adds that it is mostly the young and un- 
cultured who follow along these lines. 

The reason he alludes to them but briefly is doubtless 
because he came less directly in contact with them. Ruys- 
broeck had indeed entered Groenendael when, in the year 


1 Miraeus, Tractatus de jurer egularium, t. II. pp. 371 ss. Thomas de Cantim- 
pré, Bon. univ. vel de apib., t. IT. p. 47. 


50 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


1349, there appeared in Belgium the first bands of flagel- 
lants: flagellatores or poenitentes in Latin, flagelleurs, batteurs, 
penans in French, geeselaars or cruusbroeders in Flemish. 
These strange penitents, who had had predecessors in 
Italy at the time of the plague of 1205, first appeared in 
Germany after the terrible mort notre of 1348-9: in Hon- 
garia, in Allemannia, says their principal chronicler, Gilles 
li Muisis, abbé de Saint-Martin at Tournai. These bands 
were almost exclusively composed of men. Their garment 
consisted of a sort of blouse or surplice, back and breast 
ornamented with a red cross. They held in their hand the 
penitent’s rod (baculus poenitentiarius). | 
Generally they proceeded as follows: They divided into 
small groups and entered the town, cantando secundum suum 
idioma, Flamingi in flamingo, 1lli de Brabantia in theutonico 
et Gallici in gallico. Reaching the market-place, they stripped 
themselves of their clothes, tied a girdle around the loins, 
so that they appeared, says the chronicler, like bakers in 
front of their ovens. Then “chantaient, en faisant leurs 
pénitences, cançons moult piteuses de la Nativité Nostre- 
Seigneur et de sa sainte soufirance.” These songs, to which 
those members of the group who did not scourge themselves 
responded in chorus, were attuned to the rhythm of the 
arm which brandished the rod and inflicted the strokes. The 
flagellants mimicked all such indications as alons, a genoulx 
. vos braz estandez . . . or nous relevons. Thrice they flung 
themselves on to the ground, with arms outstretched cross- 
wise. Then, rising, they whipped one another in kneeling 
posture, sique le sanc de leurs espaules courait aval de tous 
costez (Jehan le Bel). When they had finished, they remained 
on their knees until a priest gave them absolution, where- 
upon, cantando de beata Virgine 1bant ad se revestiendum. Li 
Muisis states that among these penitents were a few women 
who, instead of undressing completely, bared only the back. : 
A number of French or Flemish songs were sung by these 
poor folk. The following are two of these, which seem to 
indicate the successive moments of the flagellation: 


DEVIATIONS 


Or avant, entre nous tuit frére, 
batons nos chavoingnes bien fort 
Ou nom de ce, batons plus fort... 
Loons Dieu et batons noz piz... 
Alons, a genoulx par penance 
Loons Dieu. Vos braz estandez, 

et en l’amour de sa souffrance, 
Chéons jus en croix a tous lez... 
Or tous à genoulx sans respit 
rechéons en croix sans balance... 
Or relevons de bon couraige 

et devers le ciel regardons.... 
Or vebatons nostre char villainne, 
Or nous relevons. ... 

Batons noz pis, batons no face, 


FROM PIETY si 


Batons nos chars plaines d'envie, 

batons d’orgueil de plus en plus. . .. 

Enfin de nostre pénitence 

nous fault à genoulx revenir. 

Tous mourrons: c’est la remembrance; 

qui nous fait tierce fois chéir. 

Jhésu, ainsi comme devant 

relevons nous la tierce fois, 

et loons Dieu à nuz genoulz ; 

jointes mains, tenons l’escourgie. 

Cremons Dieu, ayons le cuers doulx, 
et chanions à la départie, 

‘Grace Dieu,” car elle est en nous. 

Prions pour l’humaine lignée. 

Baisons la terre, levons nous. 


tendons nos bras de grant vouloir, . .. 


These itinerant manifestations met with enormous suc- 
cess. The people vied with one another in lodging the 
exhausted penitents. To sensitive souls the sight of blood 
was so contagious that the groups always left the towns in 
greater numbers than when they entered. ‘“‘It seemed to 
all,” says Jehan le Bel, “that they were holy people and 
that God had sent them to offer an example to the masses 
to do penance and so obtain remission of sins.” 


Nevertheless, it would be wrong to dwell solely on these 
more or less morbid manifestations in judging the flagellants. 
Behind these extravagant practices were new aspirations, 
unsatisfied needs, evidently connected with the general 
effervescence already mentioned. 

Li Muisis tells of a series of moral engagements to which 
aspiring flagellants were to subscribe before being admitted 
into the sect. [tem, recognoscendo quod omnes sumus ex una 
materia creati, redemptt uno pretio, dotati uno dono, debemus 
unus alterum fratrem appellare. . . . Item, tu non portabis 
armaturas nec ibis in bellis pro quocumque, excepto tuo vero 
Domino. ... Item, tu debes dare elemosynas pauperibus secun- 
dum posse tuum. ... Item, tu te debes obligare ad totam abstin- 
entiam carnis specraliter toto curso vitae tuae et custodire sancte 
tuum matrimonium, et non jurare in vanum. 

Then how was it that coercive power was rapidly brought 
to bear upon the sectarians? First, because the comparison 


52 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


which the people made between them and the priests was 
not favourable to the latter. Then, to constitute themselves a 
confraternity, the flagellants had dispensed with all authorisa- 
tion. The real grievance, however, was the danger that 
popular enthusiasm, which everywhere accompanies men 
bent on sacrifice, caused the Church to incur. Jehan le Bel 
candidly confesses this. 

The flagellants themselves protested their fidelity to the 
Church and its institutions. Li Muisis recognises this himself 
when he quotes a series of propositions to which the flagel- 
lants were to adhere pro suo toto cursu vitae. These proposi- 
tions are the same as those which, in their ensemble, con- 
stituted the rules of the fraternity. A law-suit was none the 
less begun. Had not a preacher, attached to a band of 
flagellants from Liége, stated from the pulpit that the blood 
of these fanatics was one with the blood of Jesus Christ? 

In a similar line of ideas, Froissart relates that “‘auqunes 
sotes femmes avoient drapelés apparilliés et requelloient ce 
sanc et disoient que c’estoit sanc de miracle.” This was 
quite sufficient to justify the charge of heresy. 

Pope Clement VI., circumvented by Jean du Fay, of the 
University of Paris, launched against the flagellists, on the 
20th of October 1349, a solemn bull enjoining the sectarians 
to retract and dissolve: et hoc sub poena perditionts corporum 
et bonorum. The King of France, Philippe VI., in a private 
edict of the 13th of February 1350, applicable to Tournai, 
reinforced the comminatory terms of the papal bull: “. . . con- 
straignant a cesser et a la delaissier ceulx qui suivent la 
secte, par impositions de peines temporelles, et par bans, 
deffenses et autres voies et remèdes . . . en aidant sur ce a 
Sainte-Eglise par le bras séculier et par main armée.” 

The persecutions against the flagellants, says Li Muisis, 
roused in populo murmur magnum. The municipalities of 
certain towns, such as Louvain, Tirlemont, Lierre, quite 
openly sided with the condemned. The archives mention 
that large sums were collected for them; when the wander- 
ing bands passed, straw was laid down in secret shelters to 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 53 


ensure them repose, rich citizens poured out for them wine 
and beer. In time, however, violence dispersed these harmless 
penitents, and they seem to have completely disappeared 
aiver (1355: 

They were seen again in 1400, but only for a short time, 
and nothing important is recorded of them. 


IV 


All the same, the religious exaltation beneath all these 
strange manifestations was maintained throughout the cen- 
tury. In 1374 it brought into being a new category of fanatics, 
who are first mentioned as appearing at Aix-la-Chapelle. 

These were bands of men and women who, half-naked 
and wreathed with flowers, were suddenly transported out 
of themselves and danced about with streaming hair, shout- 
ing and singing all the while. The chroniclers looked upon 
these cries as diabolical invocations: quaedam nomina daemont- 
orum nominabant, videlicet Friskes et similia. This word 
Friskes is simply an exclamation intended to regulate the 
movements of the dance: frisch, frisch auf, frisch op, in 
French debout, vivement. Exhausted by their mad sarabands, 
the dancers rolled on the ground, a prey to violent pains 
which were relieved by placing girdles very tightly around 
the abdomen: et in fine hujus chorizationts in tantum circa 
pectoralia torquebantur, quod nisi mappulis linets a suis amtcts 
per medium ventris fortiter stringerentur, quasi furtost clama- 
bant se mort. 

In contradistinction from the flagellants, the dancers 
rose in open revolt against the Church. P. d’Herenthals 
says of the sect: clerum habet odio, non curat sacramenta. 
They traversed the country in large bands, soliciting alms, 
invading churches, propagating their special brand of 
neurosis. According to the chroniclers, they practised upon 


1 Pierre d’Herenthals, Cronica episcoporum Leodiensium, man. 3802-7 de 
la Bibliothéque royale de Bruxelles. 
G 


54 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


themselves unmentionable acts which can be transcribed 
in Latin alone: noctis sub umbraculo ista perpetravit . . . cum 
natural baculo subtus se calcavit. 

The people naively attributed these extravagances to the 
influence of fornicating priests who, in granting baptism to 
unworthy subjects, introduced demons into the bodies of 
children: vulgus dicebat quod huius modi plaga populo con- 
tigisset eo quod populus male baptizatus erat maxime a presby- 
teris suas tenentibus concubinas. Thus the sectaries were 
rather exorcists than inquisitors; perhaps this may be the 
reason why the dancers had had less suffering to endure 
than their predecessors, the flagellants. The chronicles are 
full of tales dealing with exorcism, and these throw a very 
curious light on the childlike credulity of the times. Where 
the practices of the priest failed, the magistrates inflicted 
the penalty of the ban. 

In all probability these measures, along with the impos- 
sibility of maintaining for any length of time such a state 
of exaltation, rapidly brought these exhibitions of neurosis 
to an end. After a year the state of effervescence suddenly 
ceased. Hec pestis infra annum satis invaluit, sed postea per 
tres aut quatuor annos omnino cessavit.1 


Such are the main currents which profoundly stirred the 
society in which Ruysbroeck lived. To judge impartially 
these wild impetuous manifestations, we must look beyond 
the things that shock and repel us in modern life. 

There are ages that are cold and formal, in which religion 
is scarcely more than lifeless formalism. Quite different is 
the fourteenth century, whose mysticism is above all else a 
renaissance of enthusiasm. Religion has mostly ceased to be 
a duty or a function: it has become once again the expression 
of a vital need. Everywhere living intercourse with deity is 
sought; there is a wish to unite therewith, to love it and be 
loved by it, to experience materially, even in the emotions 
of the flesh, the continual presence of God. 

1 Magnum chronicum Belgicum, p. 147. 


DEVIATIONS FROM PIETY 55 


The germ of this mysticism must principally be sought 
in the survivals of Neoplatonism. Did not the philosophy of 
Plotinus culminate in his theory of ecstasy? Scotus Erigena 
and his disciples, in popularising the idea of a return to God 
and of the permeation of the human by the divine spirit, 
had cleared the path for all mystical initiatives. And the 
reason why these odd manifestations appear so frequently 
in the fourteenth century, is because the religious soul felt 
incapable of obtaining satisfaction in a Church where a great 
and inspiring message was no longer heard and a rapidly- 
spreading materialism had taken precedence of every other 
consideration. 

Let us not, therefore, pass thoughtless or incautious 
judgment on these deviations from piety. Most assuredly 
a host of creditable instincts were blended with them. 

There is one lesson, however, to be learned. Religion, if 
it is to develop normally, must be made up of the balance 
of two forces: feeling and reason. Should one of these two 
elements come to supplant the other, or to develop to the 
detriment of the other, then equilibrium is disturbed, and 
religion degenerates into either impotent rationalism or 
morbid exaltation. Now, ignorance is general throughout 
the century with which we are dealing. No one had yet dreamt 
of translating for the masses the lofty speculations of the 
great Scholastics. These men, nevertheless, had attempted 
to effect the synthesis between the claims of the heart and 
the requirements of the reason. 

We are now about to see Ruysbroeck, warned by these 
very misfortunes, attempt this assuredly novel task. Reli- 
gious enthusiasm will lose nothing, but he will be able to 
direct its impetuosity into the right channel and keep it 
within the limits of a steady doctrine. He will bring about 
a reconciliation between religion and virtue, between fervour 
and good sense, between faith and practice. And if, even in 
this world, communion is possible between man and God, 
he will show that only those can attain thereto who have 
disciplined their heart, their will and their thought. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 


I 


Two leagues to the south of Brussels, on the banks of the 
Senne, stands the market-town of Ruysbroeck. À manufac- 
turing town in these modern times, it bears no resemblance 
to the country village from which Ruysbroeck takes his name. 

In former days the forest of Soignes almost completely 
encircled it, except on the west, where the curtain of trees 
was rent to enable the vast stretch of Flemish plains gently 
to slope down towards the sea. Beneath the wild and rustling 
branches of the ash-trees flowed the little stream whose waters 
were soon to become fouled at Brussels by the weavers 
working there. 

Here, in the year 1293, was born the man whom the 
piety of the ages designated the Admirable. His family name 
is totally unknown. As was the custom in the Middle Ages, 
it was his native village that gave him his name: sic dictus 
a villa unde natalem traxit originem.* 

In some of the editions of Surius is to be found the 
following epigram intended to interpret the name of our 
mystic: 

Hactenus in terris quasi gemma sepulta latebat, 
Ac velute paucis unio, notus erat 

Coelicus his doctor, IEHOVAE cui gratia nomen, 
Cognomen tribuit grande SONORA PALUS.... 

Ancient chroniclers make it possible for us to recon- 
stitute the life of the villagers, which was even more wretched 
than that of the artisans in the large towns. 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. iv. Ruusbroec is the medieval spelling of the name. 
It is that of the most ancient documents, including the biography of Pomerius. 
We also find Rusbroch, Rusbroek, Ruysebroek, Rusebruch, Reisbruch. 
56 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK as 


Imagine a conglomeration of poor huts, made of clay 
or wood, grouped around a humble chapel. These primitive 
dwelling-places consisted mostly of a single room. There was 
no window, because of the high price of glass. The door 
served a double purpose: it allowed the smoke to leave the 
room and the light to enter. Here the people lived herded 
together, condemned at nightfall to utter darkness, mitigated 
in winter only by the ruddy glare of a wood fire. Candles 
were still a luxury, which the poor reserved for the altar 
when they attended church on special occasions. 

The village itself was divided into lanes and tiny streets, 
filthy passages which a downpour of rain speedily trans- 
formed into pools of mud. As the prescriptions of the city 
keures did not extend to the country, filth and dirt of every 
kind still obstructed these lanes, the happy hunting-ground 
of swine and poultry. 

The inhabitants all worked on the land. Very few of 
them had their own freeholds. The majority were subjected 
to a scarcely-disguised serfdom: emancipation for the peasant 
consisted mainly in freedom to exploit his land as he pleased. 
None the less was he attached to the soil—like the metairie 
or small farm on which he lived—whether as tributary to 
the churches or subject to prestations of every kind, payable 
to the seignior. Finally, at the foot of the social ladder was 
the unpaid labourer, the cossaet, the landless peasant forced 
to hire himself out to obtain a living. 

Though these men were so harshly treated, they had 
nevertheless given considerable impetus to agriculture. Cer- 
tain of them had become real masters in market-gardening 
or the cultivation of flowers, and their methods had spread 
far beyond the plains of Brabant. 

From 1292 onwards we come across rural échevinages, 
similar to those of the towns. The guarantee, however, 
offered by these bodies was illusory in most cases: as a 
matter of fact, the peasant was the chattel of the seignior. 
If the latter took away his wife or daughters or imposed on 
him arbitrary prestations, there was no efficacious juris- 


58 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


diction to protect him. In war-time, his crops were immedi- 
ately ravaged, and himself, the very man who supplied town 
and country alike with food, was the first to fall victim to 
those terrible famines which form the blackest page in the 
history of the Middle Ages. 

Against this unjust state of dependence, Boendale, who 
gave expression to the claims of the democratic spirit, often 
raised his voice: 

It is the tillers of the soil who feed the world; they supply all that life 
requires and yet have nothing themselves. Scarcely do they own a shirt, 
and yet they have to toil morning and evening. The world could better 
dispense with cardinals, bishops and monks, with lords and ey than 
with the tiller of the ground.t 

Priests and abbots were sometimes the strictest masters; 
a fact which explains the anti-clerical nature of certain 
village insurrections. 

What kind of morality could there be in a state of servi- 
tude which had no place for human dignity? Family promis- 
cuity gave rise to the most frightful immorality, for which 
less blame must be attached to the unfortunate peasants 
than to those who kept them in a most debasing serfdom. 
Drink and carnal sensations are the only joys of those whose 
lot scarcely rises above that of the brute creation. 


IT 


Such was the state of things into which Ruysbroeck was 
born. Of his parents we know nothing. This silence, how- 
ever, indicates that he was of humble extraction? 

The biographers, who speak at considerable length of his 
mother, do not say a word about his father: a fact which 


1 Jan’s Teestye, chapter xxvii. 

? At a later date the biographers claim that he was of noble parentage, 
nobili familia natus. Jan’s family was related to a certain Gerelmus Hinckaert, 
who was échevin of Brussels from 1287 onwards (Henne and Wauters, Histoire 
de la ville de Bruxelles, t. II. p. 511). The biographers have made the most of this 
flattering cousinship. The family names Hinckaert and Ruysbroeck are found 
in the registers of N.-D. de la Chapelle in connection with the foundation, on the 
28th of October 1396, of a cantuarie at the altar of Saint-Christophe. 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 59 


has given rise to the supposition that Jan was an illegitimate 
child.! Mention has been made of a certain Arnoul de Ruse- 
brueck, who lived in 1264 and whose name is found in the 
deeds of the abbey of the Saint-Sépulchre de Cambrai, to 
which were ceded the tithes of Meghem-sous-Tourneffe on 
which was dependent the chapel of the village of Ruys- 
broeck. It is also thought he might have been the son of 
the échevin Gerelmus Hinckaert, Willem van Eleghem, 
brother of a canon of whom we shall soon read. These, 
however, are all gratuitous suppositions, and the wisest 
course is to accept the silence of Pomerius. 

Of Jan’s mother we have a moral portrait that justifies 
the exquisite tenderness lavished on her by her son: eus 
quotidie filialem habens in corde memoriam. 

Pomerius reproaches the good woman with having loved 
her son too well; this leads one to imagine that she might 
have been somewhat displeased at the religious vocation of 
Ruysbroeck. Surius dryly remarks—doubtless for the same 
reason—that she was not perfect in everything (chapter 1i.). 

Let us leave these clerical commentaries. If the impres- 
sions of childhood remain deeply graven in the mind, we 
must recognise the influence of this pious mother in moulding 
her son’s nature. We may imagine the humble peasant 
woman, busied with household duties, solicitous about 
securing the daily supply of bread, of curds and of cheese, 
which made up the dietary of the poor. It was certainly by 
her side that little Jan had his first revelation of active 
life which, as he subsequently asserts, honours God quite 
as much as does worship in the sanctuary. The beauty of 
meekness, the sanctity of work, the sweet family devotion, 
all that he was later to extol in incomparable language—he 
saw in living radiance on the face of his mother. 

Why must hagiographers distort reality when they illu- 
minate and colour it? Is a man less great because angels 
have not folded their wings above his cradle? Pomerius 


1K. Ruelens, introduction to the Œuvres de Sœur Hadewyck, edited by Prof. 
Vercouillie. 


60 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


relates—and he says he was told it by those in Ruysbroeck’s 
confidence—that the child, when only seven days old, stood 
upright, contrary to custom, in the basin in which his nurse 
was washing him, and that without anyone holding him. 
The pious chronicler adds: 

What else do these preludes indicate than that this babe, so frail and 
tiny, would some day rise superior to his own human nature and, with the 


eye of contemplation, look into the divine mirror, just as now his body 
stands upright, contrary to every natural law? (Lib. II. cap. i.) 


Meanwhile, beneath the golden imagery of the legend, 
it is possible to learn something of the formation of the 
child’s character. 

We find him precociously stirred with an ardent desire 
after an intellectual life. He will have nothing to do with 
games that are noisy or of a commonplace nature. An 
innate delicacy seems to have kept him from that pre- 
cocious stigma which documents unanimously deplore in 
boys and girls. The turbulent gaiety of the villagers on 
festival days, with jugs of beer and tables laden with food, 
must have been obnoxious to him. His meditative mind 
looks far beyond these orgies: he sees how low man can 
descend when he forgets God, and he has a vision of the 
heights he may attain when he attempts to return to his 
source. 

His first school was evidently the family home. Later 
on, when he delights to dwell on the analogy between reli- 
gious life and family life, when, for him as for Jesus, 
man’s relations with God remain principally a filial matter 
—do we not find in this a reminiscence of his pure and 
gentle youth? 

There was but little instruction to be obtained in the 
country. Possibly the child received his first lessons from 
the village priest. At all events, he must have learnt to read 
and have picked up sufficient of the elements of grammar 
to be in a position, a few years later, to have his name 


1 Puer juvenis non more communi carnales affectus, verum potius spirituales 
profectus pro suae aetatis modulo sectabatur. Pomerius, lib, II. cap. ii. 


YOUTHCOERVRUYSBROECK 61 


enrolled on the registers of the schools of Brussels. His 
mother-tongue was the thiois, a Germanic dialect with 
softened inflections, from which modern Flemish is derived. 
In view of his ecclesiastical vocation, it is likely that he 
picked up some rudiments of Latin. Certainly it was in 
Latin that he said his first prayers, and that the echoes of 
the divine voice, in the Sunday services, reached him. 

We find traces of these youthful emotions in his writings. 
Such fervour is never to be forgotten: when intellect is yet 
unable to question and faith is summed up in an élan of the 
entire being! In that stainless hour, God is apprehended as 
clearly behind the trembling stars as behind the florid and 
mysterious ceremonies of the Church. Indeed, the best part 
of man has its roots in that early piety so speedily followed 
by the torturing anxieties of practical matter-of-fact humanity 
which laboriously attempts to reconcile together a faith 
devoid of proof and a reason devoid of charm. 

For the moment the child follows the promptings of his 
heart. He is sensitive as a lyre. It may be that, anticipating 
time by hope, he sees himself, clad in priestly adornments, 
raising aloft the chalice and touching it with his lips. 

Most of his days are passed either in playing with children 
as quiet as himself or in watching some peasant or wood- 
cutter at his work. 

Through contact with the poor but gentle country-folk, 
he is first made acquainted with that great law of life which 
subjects man to toil and labour. He learns to discern, beneath 
the crude aspects of the particular trade or occupation, the 
sacred beauty of work. He becomes profoundly at one with 
his people, learning to know their needs, their miseries and 
their hopes. No doubt he must have sometimes felt that 
sudden flame of revolt which springs from pity and keeps 
man from becoming hardened at the spectacle of a world 
corroded by hatred and iniquity. 

To all these influences we must add another. 

The forest came right up to the outlying cottages of the 
village. Wide-spreading marshes, now converted into pasture- 


62 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


land, cast a sort of moving wave beyond the river, bordered 
with gnarled willows. In the incomparable sunsets of Flanders 
this stretch of landscape shone like burning metal. 

Saint Francis composed the canticle of the sun, but the 
entire work of Ruysbroeck is no more than a hymn to “ Mon- 
seigneur frère Soleil.” Later on he compares the whole of 
religious life, in the regularity of its progress, to the course 
of this magnificent orb. 

Observation of the life of plants and animals, a profound 
intimacy with the mystery of forests and waters, will reveal 
to him that gracious Gospel which God writes on the corolla 
of the lily and the wing of the bird, and supply him with those 
marvellous images which adorn his whole work. 

The forest in particular, which he has to traverse in 
every season, opens to him its shady or its sunlit refuges. 
With its straight-stemmed trees, it appears before him as 
the symbol of true life, firmly rooted in the depths of con- 
sciousness and spreading out its being to the heights. Most 
of the species he knows by name, as well as the variegated 
flora on the surface of the soil. 

Sometimes, beneath sombre arcades, the child sees the 
dukes of Brabant gallop past in brilliant array, for they are 
fearless huntsmen. Indeed, so powerful were early influences 
upon him that, after years of practical ministry, Ruysbroeck 
returned to the woods to meditate beneath their shady walks, 
and to die not far from the spot where the waving foliage of 


the beeches had lulled him to sleep when a child. 


II] 


And now Jan has reached his eleventh year. 

Pomerius relates how, impelled by divine benevolence, 
the child tore himself away from the solicitous care of too 
loving a mother, and ran away from home. 

There can be no doubt but that there is a legendary 
element in the episode as we find it related. The account 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 63 


has manifestly been influenced by the tradition regarding 
John the Baptist: sicut ille civium turmas fugiens in deserto 
latuit. Is it not in accordance with saintly tradition that he 
should flee from the world? Must not the saint regard as 
naught the affections of earth, and lose himself in that love 
and tenderness which alone is not subject to time? Good 
hagiographers would have thought they were detracting from 
their hero by subjecting him to the common laws of the 
heart. Indeed, a remark of Pomerius enables us to recon- 
struct the event: casu veniens ad domum memorati canonict. 
This little word casu informs us that young Ruysbroeck had 
the opportunity of visiting a relative of his, Jan Hinckaert, 
priest of Sainte-Gudule at Brussels. 

In the course of this visit the boy must have shown 
himself, in all the ardour and spontaneity of his soul, already 
interested in the things of the spirit. Perhaps he spoke to 
the priest of his newly-conceived vocation. At all events, 
Jan Hinckaert welcomed him joyfully (gaudenter suscepit) 
and undertook his education 

This was in 1304. 

Here we must break into the story of Pomerius. The 
biographer relates that, affected by a sermon which he had 
heard, Hinckaert had completely shaken himself free from 
the vanities of the time, along with a friend of his, Franco 
de Coudenberg (de Frigidomonte). The two friends had 
formed a small mystical association, of which, evidently, 
young Ruysbroeck was a member. This story, in the place 
where it is inserted, anticipates the march of events. Indeed, 
we are aware through the Necrologium Viridisvallis that 
Coudenberg was born in 1296 and died in 1386. In 1304 he 
would have been only eight years of age. Now, at the time 
of his conversion, he is stated by Pomerius himself to be a 
vir unus praecipuus famosus clericus. Consequently we must 
antedate the event by at least fifteen years. Nevertheless, 
nothing authorises us to believe that Jan Hinckaert lived a 
dissolute life. Son of the échevin Gerelmus Hinckaert whose 
relationship with the Ruysbroeck family has been mentioned, 


64 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


dowered with a rich patrimony, we can only think that 
Hinckaert had not wholly detached himself from the life 
of the world. He lived in a spacious house on the Sablon de 
Sainte-Gudule, at the corner of the present rue du Marquis. 
Neither better nor worse than other priests of his age, he 
had not bid the world the abrenuntio of the ascetics. 

Still, there can be no doubt but that the presbytery of 
the Sablon Sainte-Gudule was the place in which the early 
vocation of Ruysbroeck grew and developed. 

Nothing has come down to us of the conversations 
between uncle and nephew; so we will imitate the sobriety 
of our documents. Still, in the pages subsequently written 
by our mystic, we may find a sort of reminiscence of these 
happy years. Certainly it is of them he is thinking when he 
speaks of “the May month of the spiritual life,” when man 
as yet shows nothing more than promises and gives himself 
up wholly to the divine influence which causes fragile hopes 
to yield their fruit. As we read these pages, we are reminded 
of Goethe’s words: “What constitutes a beautiful life? A 
dream of youth that has been realised in maturity.” 

But this life would be a mutilated imperfection if the 
development of the soul were not accompanied by a corre- 
sponding development of the mind. If the soul infinitely 
outstrips the possibilities of the intellect and oversteps the 
barriers imposed by nature on this latter, there can be 
no solid faith apart from sturdy intellectual culture. When 
reason abandons its task of control and guidance, faith goes 
astray. Then arise fanaticism, credulity, religious perversion. 
In particular was this true of the century in which Ruys- 
broeck lived. Brussels was continually being disturbed and 
upset by the fanatics of the Free Spirit. 

Ruysbroeck was sent, from the very beginning, to the 
Latin schools of Brussels, which he. diligently attended for 
four years.} 

Let us visit these schools for a moment. At the outset 


2... quas (scholas) cum annis circiler quatuor Bruxellae docilis frequentasset. 


Pomerius, lib. ITI. cap. ii. 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 65 


of the fourteenth century mention is made of a dozen 
establishments of secondary instruction. They were gener- 
ally dependent on a chapter-house, and, as in all the schools 
of the Middle Ages, instruction was divided into two sections: 
an art section, or the trivium, and a scientific section, or 
the quadrivium. The complete cycle of study comprised 
grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry 
and astronomy: 


Gramm loquitur, Dia verba docet, Rhet verba colorat, 
Mus canit, Ay numerat, Geo ponderat, Ast colit astra.1 


In these schools the masters attached most importance 
to the teaching of grammar, on which subject such scholars 
as Evrard de Béthune and Michel de Marbais had written 
noteworthy treatises. At the termination of their studies 
young men were capable of writing Latin and of reading 
the language fluently. No mention is made of Greek: an 
omission which w..s not destined to be rectified much before 
the sixteenth century. 

Fees were charged at these schools, so probably the 
wealthy Hinckaert personally supplied his nephew with the 
money required by the regulations. Consequently it was to 
this generous relative that Ruysbroeck was indebted for the 
solid basis of instruction manifest in the whole of his work. 
It is not definitely known if Ruysbroeck pursued his studies 
beyond the secondary stage. At that period Belgium was not 
supplied with those great universities which contributed to 
the renown of France, Italy and England. Young men 
desirous of studying theology or law had to leave the country, 
to betake themselves to Oxford, to Bologna, or to Paris. 

It is possible—and even probable—that Ruysbroeck at 
Cologne became acquainted with the teaching of Meister 
Eckhart, and was initiated, also at Cologne, into the scholastic 


1 On the origin of this classification compare Hauréau, La Philosophie scolas- 
tique, Paris, 1850, t. I. pp. 19 ss. It probably dates back to Plato and Aristotle. 
Philo was acquainted with it, as was Saint Augustine. But the true theorist of 
this classification appears to be Martianus Capella in his Satyricon, sive de Nuptiis 
inter Philologiam et Mercurium et de Septem artibus liberalibus. 


66 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


methods of Albertus Magnus. All the same, the biographers 
say nothing on this point. 

But to what extent must we credit their assertions? 
According to Pomerius and Surius, Ruysbroeck showed no 
disposition whatsoever for study; his heart was better than 
his head. He had scarcely any acquaintance, says Pomerius, 
with the rudiments of grammar. We must seek, he adds, in 
supernatural instruction for the source of his marvellous 
knowledge: non plane acquisita per suam industriam litterali 
scientia sed potius revelatione divina.t Further on, however, 
Pomerius seems to amend his judgment. He shows us Ruys- 
broeck seeking in instruction for a rule of life and not for 
the realisation of vain ambition.? He even notes the progress 
he has made: proficiens coram Deo et hominibus. 

It is important to remember the phrase. In the first place, 
it is traditional for hagiographers to regard their heroes as 
God-taught$ Again, such a presentation of things raises the 
writings of the saints above all human criticism. We must 
not forget that the works of Ruysbroeck were early sus- 
pected of pantheism. What better answer could be given to 
such accusations than to prove Ruysbroeck to have had 
little learning, to have received illumination only from on 
high? The good Surius himself, with all his pious wonder, 
gives a hint that Ruysbroeck not only surpassed in know- 
ledge the dialecticians and the philosophers, but also that 
few of the theologians were capable of understanding his 


1 De Origine ..., lib. I. cap. x. This legend has been repeated, unchecked by 
all the biographers. ‘‘He was ignorant,” says Dionysius of Chartreux, ‘‘and 
scarcely acquainted with the elements of Latin” (Serm. I. de conf. non pont.). 
Again, ‘‘he was illiterate and without education (illiteratus et idiota), though after 
the fashion of the great apostles Peter and John .. . because his sole master was 
the Holy Spirit ” (Tract. de donis Spir. Sanct., ii. a. 13). Trithem calls him “‘viy 
devotus sed parum literatus” (de Script. eccles., n. 672, édit. Fabric., p. 156); 
Valère André: “viv divinae contemplationi addictissimus et sanctitatis majoris 
quam doctrinae” (Bibl. Belg., Lovanii, 1643, p. 555). It is astonishing to find such 
men as Altmeyer, Schmidt, Jundt, Bonet-Maury and J. Fabre accepting this 
judgment unchecked. 

2 Move beati Benedicti magis divinam sapientiam vita et moribus quam humanam 
scientiam vacantem honoribus adamavit (lib. II. cap. ii.). 

8 Compare Thomas de Celano on Saint Francis (II. Vita, 3, 45): quamvis homo 
iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiae studiis innutritus. 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 67 


works.! Here Surius is right, as against Pomerius. Our study 
of Ruysbroeck’s thought will show not only the powerful 
originality of the thinker, but the many philosophical in- 
fluences that were brought to bear upon him. We shall see 
that he has mastered the psychology and the physical sciences 
of his times, that he has adopted the method of the great 
Scholastics and the very schema of their speculations. He 
is acquainted with Saint Augustine and Saint Bernard, with 
Scotus Erigena and Albertus Magnus, and many others. 
The very close affinity of his doctrine with the system of 
Meister Eckhart can only be explained by the most singular 
open-mindedness. 

Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris, was 
under no delusion. In the deed of accusation which he drew 
up against Ruysbroeck’s pantheistic ideas, he declares: 

It has been said that the man who wrote this book (the third book of 
The Spiritual Marriage) was illiterate and uneducated, and consequently 
an attempt has been made to regard it as inspired by the Holy Spirit, but 
the book gives evidence rather of human scholarship than of divine in- 
spiration ... and the style is somewhat laboured. Besides, in order to deal 
with such a subject, it is not sufficient to be pious, one must be a scholar.” 

Lefevre d’Etaples also, in the introduction which pre- 
cedes the Latin translation of The Spiritual Marriage, points 
to Ruysbroeck’s profound knowledge of nature, astronomy, 
theology and medicine. 

It may thus be regarded as historically certain that 
young Ruysbroeck rapidly and brilliantly assimilated the 
knowledge of his time. But he also soon discovered the 
vanity of all this scholastic logomachy (logicorum fallacias 

. . philosophorum vanas tndustrias). And so, when his 
classes had come to an end, he gave up barren disputes 
about words to devote himself solely to theology, “that 
divine wisdom,” guae vitam ac mores pie componere docet. 

If we accept the data of Pomerius, Ruysbroeck must 
then have been about sixteen or seventeen years of age 
(1307-8). Now a period of silence intervenes. We know 


1 Vita Rusbrochii, cap. i. 
* Epistola...ad fr. Bartholomaeum, in Gersonii opera, i. p. 59. 


68 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


nothing of that time of intense preparation and of medita- 
tion during which he acquires by his own efforts a truth 
capable of sustaining him. Reading Pomerius, we have the 
feeling that a large blank has here been left in the story of 
our hero’s life. Did he form one of those bands of students 
who went cheerfully each autumn to a famous European 
university? History affords no means of answering the 
question. None the less is it almost certain that the youth- 
ful scholar was very studious and that he had other masters 
than those he might find at his uncle’s, the canon Hinckaert. 
It is likely that he then plunged into the writings of the 
great mystics, whose influence is evident in his own work: 
Dionysius the Areopagite, Saint Augustine, Gregory the 
Great, Saint Bernard and the famous Victorines—Hugues, 
Richard and Saint Bonaventura. 


IV 


Meanwhile the young student’s mother came to live in 
Brussels. The reputation of the pious and studious youth 
had quickly reached the village, making the absence of 
so gifted a son all the more intolerable to a mother’s 
heart. | 
And so the worthy peasant woman set off for Brussels, 
after selling her scanty goods. Her wishes, however, fell foul 
of the ecclesiastical rules which forbade a woman to dwell 
beneath the same roof as a priest. She had to abandon the 
idea of living with her son in the house of canon Hinckaert, 
and so retired into a béguinage. 

Cum ejus non posset gaudere optato contubernio, statim 
accessit ad beghuinagium *: a melancholy phrase through and 
through. It is the destiny of mothers to lose their children 
more than once. No one like a mother, however, can content 
herself with the crumbs of happiness. Deprived of the sweet 
daily intimacy for which she had hoped, the good woman 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. ii. 


YOUTH OF RUYSBROECK 69 


still regarded herself as fortunate in not being removed 
altogether from her son. Ruysbroeck frequently visited his 
mother at the béguinage. In the secret of her heart she 
marvelled at the special favours which Heaven was lavishing 
on the child of her flesh. Doubtless she must have been full 
of respect for this young scholar, who was still her child 
though she was making a sacrifice of him to God. And, by 
a prodigy of love, she succeeded in transmuting into gentle- 
ness her original feeling of bitterness: materna plus viscera 
confortabat, says the biographer, quam s1 ejus carnali prae- 
sentia ad votum fuisset quotidie frequentata. 

Nor may we deny the influence of this feminine tender- 
ness—more pure and disinterested than any other—in the 
formation of his character. In renouncing love, the saints 
renounce in particular the tumultuous stirrings of the heart 
and the sorrows of the flesh. Through the mother, however, 
they remain in communion with poor sorrow-burdened 
humanity which must ever be accorded the sweet tender- 
ness of a kiss. We need not wonder at the place a mother 
holds in the biographies of the saints: Saint Monica, Pica, 
the mother of Saint Francis, Madame de Boisy, the mother 
of Saint François de Sales, will live in human memory as 
long as their sons. 

Why is it that we do not value all the wealth of maternal 
love until it has been taken from us? When the old beguine 
died a few years afterwards, Ruysbroeck made acquaintance 
with his first and bitterest grief. Our biographer, who relates 
only the main lines of his life, insists on telling us that the 
young orphan did not spend a single day without dwelling 
in mind upon that cherished memory: e7us quotidie filialem 
habens in corde memoriam. No longer able to render to her 
any of those innumerable services whereby man imagines 
he repays the debts of childhood, he now commended his 
mother to the love and care of divine Pity. Son and mother 
thus exchanged mysterious visits in the spiritual realms. 
For it is impossible that those who have faithfully loved 
each other here below should no longer be anything to each 

H 


70 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


other once death has separated them. The dead we love 
are eternally living. | 

Ruysbroeck, who probably delighted in meditation and 
study, had postponed his priestly ordination beyond the 
usual limits. He did not doubt that he was listening to his 
mother speaking through that interior voice which re- 
proached him for his continual delayings: O mi fils dilectis- 
sime, quam longa adhuc mora temporis superest quousque 
efficiaris presbyter ! The image of the well-beloved departed 
also appeared to him in his dreams, stimulating and en- 
couraging him. 

For some time past he had been assisting his uncle in 
the services of the collegiate church. Thus, at least, must we 
interpret the remark of Pomerius: quem tam pro generis 
affinitate quam vitae et morum probitate . . . effectum vicarium 
ejusdem ecclesiae sanctae Gudilae.* After filling this subor- 
dinate post for a few years, Ruysbroeck was ordained priest 
in 1317, at the age of twenty-four. 

He never received any other ecclesiastical dignity than 
that of chaplain. In this capacity he was placed under the 
direction of his uncle, Jan Hinckaert, canonicus minor, who 
in 1328 was raised to be major canon of the fourth prebend 
of Sainte-Gudule. 

On the morrow of his ordination the new chaplain cele- 
brated mass for the first time. 

At the moment his hands held aloft the chalice, a flood 
of supernatural joy poured over him. He then knew that 
his mother had entered into complete peace. 

At a later date, when materialising these wholly interior 
impressions, he often told the monks at Groenendael that, 
on the day of his first mass, his mother visited him: per- 
sonaliter completo officio ipsum visitans. Her countenance 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. iii. 

? Pomerius, lib. I. cap. x. 

3 We know through Miraeus and Foppens (Opera diplom., t. I. pp. 57, 200) that 
there were two chapters at Sainte-Gudule: one of twelve major canons, founded 
in 1047 by Lambert, Count of Louvain and Brabant, and another of ten minor 
canons founded by Duke Henri I. in 1226. 


YOUTAYORVRUYSBROECK 3 


shone with joy and gratitude. And this vision clearly ex- 
pressed that “by virtue of the divine sacrifice he had just 
offered, God had delivered his mother from purgatory.” 1 

And so, on the threshold of the new life of activity he 
was about to take up, Ruysbroeck was greeted with the 
same smile, the same tender affection, which had watched 
over his tottering footsteps as a child. 

1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. iii. It may be that Ruysbroeck was thinking of this 


touching episode of his interior life when he wrote chapter xliii. of the second 
book of The Spiritual Marriage, on the granting of prayer. 


On Bea ait DU EAN Sd 


BLOEMARDINNE 


I / 


RuysBROoECK was no doubt still living with his uncle when 
the life of the latter underwent a sudden transformation. 

The canon, a pious man, plentifully supplied with material 
possessions, in all probability conscientiously fulfilled the 
duties of his office, though without that utter consecration 
of heart and mind which alone marks the man of God. It 
was certainly owing to perplexity of soul that he once heard 
an interior voice saying to him: “Go at once to the church; 
there you will hear a preacher whose message will strongly 
move you and direct you along the path of salvation.” 
Hinckaert gave heed to this voice. Hastening to the sacred 
edifice, he there saw, in the pulpit of Sainte-Gudule, a 
missionary priest, well known for a certain hesitancy in 
speaking. No sooner, however, did he perceive Hinckaert, 
than the preacher felt such a stream of eloquence pouring 
from his lips as he had never hitherto experienced. Amazed 
at the prodigy, he brought his sermon to a conclusion with 
the words: “I believe that this exuberance of speech to 
which you have listened has been given me because of one 
in your midst, in order that he may amend his ways and 
turn to righteousness.” Hinckaert, considerably affected, said 
to himself: You have spoken the truth. It was the grace of 
God that summoned me hither and gave you to utter these 
words, so that I may turn aside from the vanities of the age 
and secure salvation by changing my mode of life.” 1 

From that day onward, the canon used his best endea- 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. viii. 


72 


BLOEMARDINNE 73 


vours to lay aside the old Adam. So great was the change 
in him that this conversion speedily became, throughout 
the chapter, a potent germ of sanctification. Quite a number 
of priests and canons, some from amour-propre and others 
in a spirit of penance, also turned to the service of God 
alone. The one who most powerfully felt the contagion of 
example was a certain Franco de Coudenberg (de Frigido- 
monte), famosus clericus, magister 1n artibus et ejusdem 
ecclesiae minor canonicus, dives proprio patrimonio, magnaeque 
reputationts et famae in populo.1 

The Groenendael Nécrologe, in which his death is regis- 
tered ad diem V Idus ‘fulit anno Domini, MCCCLXXXV1., 
confirms the judgment of Pomerius. Such was the influence 
of Coudenberg, it is said, that neither the bishop of Cambrai, 
nor the duke of Brabant, nor the town of Brussels, under- 
took anything without previously consulting him. His moral 
guarantee alone ensured the due execution of wills and 
testaments. 

A common desire for perfection so firmly united Hinc- 
kaert and Coudenberg that they set up house together under 
the same roof and distributed their goods to the poor, 
retaining for themselves only the bare necessaries of life.? 
Along with Ruysbroeck the two canons formed a veritable 
mystical association (perfecto ternario) in which the vocation 
of the young priest became very pronounced. 

We can easily deduce the nature of this nucleus of 
spiritual life from the naive expressions of the biographer: 
a house built on love and faith, enveloped in an atmosphere 
of humility and renunciation; in very truth, a laboratory 
of sanctity. 

Even those who served participated in this general spirit 
of devotion. Pomerius complacently tells us of an aged 
domestic who, in a spirit of mortification, wore a dress of 
thin fustian, winter and summer alike. Whenever the wind 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. ix. 
* Quidquid ultra sobrium victum et vestitum eis supererat liberaliter pauperibus 
erogarunt. Pomerius, lib. I. cap. ix. 


74 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


was too icy cold, she made for herself a czlice of plaited hay, 
or of some other material that was unpleasant to the skin 
(corporis afflictiva). Such piety did not fail to exasperate 
the eternal enemy of the human race. He tortured her in 
every possible way, especially with terrible and repulsive 
visions, though without being able to lead astray the humble 
ancilla, confidens in Domino qui non derelinquit sperantes 
HSE 

Ruysbroeck’s experiences in such an environment were 
of a precise and definite character. In the person of his com- 
mensals he saw something of the beauty, the simplicity and 
heroism of the religious life. The flesh counted for nothing, 
and, in the subjection of the lower nature, the spirit 
blossomed forth magnificently. God spoke to him, not in the 
solitude of the desert, but through the voices of his friends. 
And doubtless their attention and care for this debutant in 
the mystic life prevented those gropings and hesitations, 
even those lapses from grace, that most great saints lament. 

He endeavoured [says Surius ?] to resemble Christ in his humility; he 
even showed this in his modest and reserved deportment and in his dress, 
about which he troubled so little that he appeared to all as a despicable 
and poverty-stricken creature. 

Still, he did not give himself up wholly to the placid 
joys of solitary contemplation; he established a just balance 
between the peace of the cell and outside affairs (forinsecas 
occupationes). 

While daily drawing upon the springs of the mystic life, 
he took an active part in the doings of the times. His books, 
indicative of a psychology of no ordinary type, prove that 
he shared in the warfare of ideas and of human life more 
than his biographer is willing to relate. Renown does not 
often seek out men, they must go to meet it. Several episodes, 
indeed, make it evident that the young priest soon became 
known to the masses. 

One day, it is said, as he was walking the streets of 
Brussels absorbed in thought, some passers-by recognised 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xi., xii. ? Vita Rusbrochit, cap. iii. 


BLOEMARDINNE 7 


him and were struck by the simplicity of his bearing and of 
his appearance. “How I should love to be as holy as this 
priest now passing!” exclaimed one of them. “ As for myself,” 
answered his companion, “I would not change places with 
him for all the gold in the world. What pleasure can one 
find in such a state?” The saint, who chanced to hear 
these words, said: “Oh! how little you know the delight 
experienced by those who know something of the spirit 
of God!” 1 

The soul, indeed, reveals itself in the countenance; and 
the interior life radiates without, like the light of a night-lamp 
through the translucent porcelain. Men are not for long 
deceived as to real personality; tone of voice, rhythm of 
gait and assurance of look express more than words. Gérald 
Naghel has also borne witness to the extraordinary impres- 
sion made by the chaplain of Sainte-Gudule: 

What edifying things might be written of him; one might speak of his 
serene joyful face, his humble benevolent speech, his external aspect of 


spirituality, his truly religious deportment, as expressed both in his 
raiment and in his every action.” 


Il 


As we have seen, these were strangely troublous times. 
Social tendencies, repressions accompanied with bloodshed, 
and religious outbursts, kept Brussels in a state of continual 
excitement. The artisans’ revolt, brutally strangled in 1306, 
had left behind in the heart of the conquered a tenacious 
hatred which took advantage of every opportunity of 
manifesting itself. 

Large numbers of Beghards continually streamed from 
Germany into Belgium, carrying everywhere the germs of 
a pantheistic heresy. The people violently sided with these 
pious tramps who seemed to be the genuine representatives 
of the Gospel spirit. 

No wonder, then, that we find, springing up with renewed 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. iv.; Surius, cap. iii. 
* Prologue, in De Vreese, Bijdragen, p. 12. 


76 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


vitality, subversive systems, which from the outset may be con- 
nected with Marguerite Porrette, whose ideas continued quietly 
to make headway. Heresy, generally kept in check within 
the human consciousness, periodically acquires an increase 
of expression: real outbursts are related to have taken place 
in 1307 and 1316, and again between 1330 and 13365. It is 
to this latter manifestation that Pomerius alludes in chap- 
ter v. of his biography: quomodo occultam haeresim et ejus 
fautricem dictam vulgariter Bloemardinne in oppido Bruxellenst 
famosam confutavit (Ruusbroec). 

This remark of Pomerius is the only document we possess 
regarding the prophetess. Is it possible to throw any light 
on the mystery shrouding her personality? 

Let us first see what Pomerius says. 

In Brussels, at the time when Ruysbroeck was a lay- 
priest, there lived a heretic (mulier quaedam perversi dog- 
matis) who was commonly called Bloemardinne.! Such was 
the fame of this woman that two seraphim were reported to 
accompany her whenever she appeared before the altar to 
receive the Communion. She had written numerous works 
de spiritu libertatis, in which she extolled seraphic love 
(nefandissimo amore venereo quem et seraphicum appellabat). 
Her doctrine had attracted numerous disciples. When teach- 
ing or writing she would sit on a silver seat. It was reported 
that this seat was offered, after her death, as a venerable 
relic, to the duchess of Brabant. When news of her death 
got abroad, numbers of the maimed and the halt drew near 
her bed, hoping to be healed by touching her dead body. 


I affirm [adds Pomerius], from personal experience, that the writings 
of Bloemardinne, though excessively baleful, have such an aspect of truth 
and piety that no one could perceive in them any seed of heresy unless he 
receives help or special gifts from Him who teaches all truth. 


Bloemardinne disappears after 1335. According to two 
valuable witnesses, however,? her doctrine is again to the 


1Mastelinus (Necrologium, cap. vi. p. 91) assigns 1305-9 as the date of 
Bloemardinne’s propaganda. This is evidently an error. Ruysbroeck was then no 
more than from twelve to sixteen years of age. 

EAD ne One (Necrologium, cap. vi.); Latomus and Hoybergius (Corsendonca, 
p- 84). 


BLOEMARDINNE he 


fore at the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is then 
called the sect of the Men of Intelligence, with Gilles le Chantre 
and Guillaume de Hildernissen at its head. The bishop of 
Cambrai, Pierre d’Ailly, delegated Hendrick Selle, the in- 
quisitor, to exterminate the sectarians. Caught in an ambush, 
the inquisitor escaped only by flight. The trial of the Men 
of Intelligence was heard in 1411 by Pierre d’Ailly, and ended 
in the abjuration of Guillaume, who was condemned to 
perpetual detention in a convent. 

This, in brief, is all that is known regarding Bloemardinne 
and her influence. 

Who, in reality, is this mysterious prophetess? 

Are we to identify her with Marie de Valenciennes of 
whom Gerson speaks? Reflecting on the danger of spiritual 
intimacy between the sexes, Gerson says: 

In particular, Marie de Valenciennes must be avoided, for she applies 
to the burning passions of her soul things that relate to divine powers; 
she claims that he who attains to the perfection of divine love is liberated 
from all observance of law. .. . This woman, with incredible subtility, has 
written a book on the love of God. 

In effect, the identity of doctrine between Bloemardinne 
and Marie de Valenciennes is very striking. Chronology, 
however, will not permit us to identify the two heretics. 
Gerson speaks of Marie as of a contemporary; now, the 
chancellor of Paris could not have written previous to 1390. 

Two Belgian historians, Ruelens and P. Fredericq, think 
they recognise in Bloemardinne the poetess sister Hade- 
wijck, who is generally regarded as a nun of the thirteenth 
century." 

The poetess calls herself Hadewijsk, Haywigis, Haywige, 
or Haduw. Now, the archives of the Brussels hospices men- 
tion between the years 1305-35 a certain Domicella Heilwigis 
dicta Blommardinne, daughter of Wilhelmus, dictus Bloemart. 
Still, the similarity of sound between Haywigis and Heilwigis 
would not, of itself alone, have been a sufficient argument 

» Her works have been published in the collection of the Maatschappij der 


Vlaamsche Bibliophilen, the poetry (ritmata) by Heeremans and Ledeganck, 
1875; the prose (epistolae, visiones) by J. Vercouillie, 1895. 


78 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


to carry conviction. What causes Ruelens and Fredericq to 
identify the poetess and the heretic is the doctrine of sister 
Hadewijck herself, whose orthodoxy had hitherto seemed 
unassailable. Her sole theme, which she treats with un- 
paralleled poetical ability, is the celebration of divine love 
to which she summons her co-religionists. Without pro- 
ceeding to the extremes of which the Beghards and the 
brethren of the Holy Spirit are accused, this love never- 
theless has a strict correlation with physical love; and sister 
Hadewijck expresses it in realism which is, at all events, 
daring. She complacently describes her visions; they are 
always accompanied with physical suffering and with loss 
of consciousness. She calls her own her friends or the new 
(die nuwe), in opposition to the uninitiated, the strangers 
(vremde) or the old (die oude). She declares that love takes 
the place of all church services,? that she performs miracles 
and has received the gift of prophecy, that she has raised 
the dead to life,t and that she has seen Christ himself come 
down from the altar to administer to her Communion with 
his own hand.5 

The affinity of these passages with what we know of the 
doctrine of Bloemardinne does not appear of such a nature 
as to induce us to agree with Ruelens and Fredericq. We 
would advance a few objections to the reasoning of the two 
learned historians. 

First, sister Hadewijck in all her works repeats the 
expression of her submission to the Church. She explicitly 
declares that Love must be served: 


met woorden en werken 
ende metter wet der Heileger Kerke§& 


According to her own statements her partisans must 
have been very few: in the Duchy of Brabant the total 


1 Compare what she says of the kiss in her Twee-vormich tractaetken, in Opera, 
t. II. pp. 190-3. 

* Opera, I., Gedichten, p. 200. 3 Opera, II., Proza, p. 179. 

4 Ibid., pp. 178, 195. 5 Jbid., p. 156. 

° Opera, I., Gedichten, p. 190. Cf. also p. 72: Wat ons orcondet de Heileghe 
Kerke,—hare meere, hare minderen, hare papen, hare klerke,—dat Minne es van den 
hoochste werken —ende edelst bi naturen. 


BLOEMARDINNE 79 


amounted to forty-three men, six maidens and six 
widows. 

But what is more important, we find in the work of 
Hadewijck a chronological argument which does not allow 
us to go farther back than the thirteenth century. In the 
fourteenth vision ? Hadewijck gives a list of the perfects who 
have attained to true love: dit sijn die volmaecte, ghecleedt 
ghelijc Minnen, die Hadewich sach, elc met sinen seraphinnen. 

Amongst the dead she names Saint Bernard, whose 
canonisation dates back to 1174, and she ends the list of 
deceased perfects with “une béguine que maitre Robert fit 
périr à cause de son amour parfait.” Here reference is un- 
doubtedly made to the Dominican Robert, surnamed le 
Bougre, a former Patarin, a grand inquisitor who entered 
upon his duties in 1233 and covered Flanders and Cambrai 
with stakes and funeral piles. Immediately after the mention 
of the ill-fated victim of Robert le Bougre, Hadewijck passes 
to the living perfecti. We know from another quarter that 
_ at the time when Thomas de Cantimpré ended his Abeilles 
mystiques (1262) Hadewijck was still living.® 

Finally, the following argument seems to be of value. 
The writings of sister Hadewijck were certainly drawn upon 
by Ruysbroeck.* If sister Hadewijck is identical with Bloe- 
mardinne, can it be admitted that Ruysbroeck was inspired 
by the very person whose vigorous opponent he was? To ask 
the question is to answer it. 

Still, would it not be possible to identify the heretic with 
the Domicella Hetlwigis dicta Blommardinne mentioned in the 
archives of the Brussels hospices? Van Mierlo, impelled both 
by chronological reasons and by internal evidence, is tempted 
to do this. According to official documents this domicella 
was very wealthy, a fact which agrees with what Pomerius 
relates of the silver seat on which she sat. The consideration 
enjoyed by Bloemardinne (tantae famae et opinionis) might 
well extend to the prestige of her fortune. We know that 


1 Opera, II., Proza, pp. 180-8. * Ibid., pp. 183 ss. 
3 Van Mierlo, Dietsche Warande .. ., 1920-2, p. 84. 4 [bid., p. 103. 


80 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Heilwigis bought several houses in Brussels between 1305 
and 1306. She lent money to numerous ecclesiastics, including 
canons of Sainte-Gudule. The archives even mention the case 
of a certain Corneille Nieneve, a priest, to whom Heilwigis 
appears to have promised a sum of one hundred Flanders’ 
livres. Not having kept her promise, she signed an acknow- 
ledgment of this sum in the presence of several witnesses, 
one of whom was Jan Hinckaert, on the 6th of July 1335. 
She died in the same year, and in 1336 a portion of her 
property was sold for the purpose of paying the debt. 

We find it difficult to regard these rencontres as more 
than presumptions. To us the mystery of the personality 
of Bloemardinne remains unsolved. And we must resignedly 
content ourselves with the text of Pomerius alone. More- 
over, this text is sufficiently explicit to enable us to recog- 
nise the doctrine of Bloemardinne as an offshoot from the 
sect of the Free Spirit. Ruysbroeck, indeed, never quotes 
the name of Bloemardinne, whereas he distinctly mentions, 
on several occasions, freedom of spirit (wrihert des geestes). 


III 


In Brussels Ruysbroeck found himself at the very heart 
of the spiritual uprising that took place in Belgium during the 
whole of the fourteenth century. While still young, he wit- 
nessed religious disturbances, caused in the latter half of 
the reign of Jean II. (1294-1312) by the masses being per- 
meated with pantheistic ideas and by the more or less open 
opposition to the ecclesiastical authorities on the part of the 
Beghards, the Lollards and the beguines. 

This uprising for the most part showed itself in serious 
cruelty practised upon the Jews, whom the people looked 
upon as responsible for all their troubles. In 1308 the anti- 
semitic outcry was so violent that the duke had to afford 
refuge in his castle of Genappe for the wretches who had 
escaped massacre. These violent scenes were repeated in 1315, 


BLOEMARDINNE 81 


because of the high cost of food subsequent on a terrible 
cattle-plague. 

There can be no doubt but that these events, in which 
human brutality gave itself free play, made a deep impression 
upon Ruysbroeck. He at once grasped the relation between 
these disturbances and the spirit of religious individualism 
which nothing could check. As a result, when he found 
Bloemardinne making numerous proselytes (multos haberet 
aemulos), Ruysbroeck spoke strongly against the heresy 
(illico perversae doctrinae opposuit). He attacked Bloemar- 
dinne and unmasked her writings (scripta fucata et haeretica 

. denudavit) without troubling, adds the biographer, about 
the numerous enemies he made for himself by this opposi- 
tion. It is likely that the polemic was fierce and ardently 
prosecuted on both sides. Songs were made up about Ruys- 
broeck and ridicule was poured on him in the streets of 
Brussels. Unfortunately the documents relating to this con- 
troversy have utterly vanished: both the pamphlets of 
Bloemardinne and the refutations of Ruysbroeck. This has 
led to the supposition that Ruysbroeck destroyed both alike. 
The substance of his replies, however, has passed completely 
into his polemical writings. There we can find a true account 
of these jousts in which the spirit of tradition and discipline 
was matched against individualism and moral anarchy. 

The success of Bloemardinne and the sectarians of the 
Free Spirit was not so much due to the ideas propagated 
as to the fact that these ideas were presented in the vulgar 
tongue. It was thus necessary, in order to overcome sub- 
versive doctrines, to place within reach of the people the 
elements of true mysticism without committing oneself to 
an entirely negative refutation. Such is the character of 
Ruysbroeck’s first works. His polemics are essentially posi- 
tive: he relies on the attraction of truth to convert the 
masses, and it is with this end in view that he writes The 


Book of the Kingdom of God’s Lovers.} 


* David, t. IV. pp. 125-265: Dat boec van den Rike der ghelieven ; Surius, 
pp. 389-430: Liber insignis cujus titulus est Regnum Dei amantium. 


82 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


This work, written after the style of the great Scholastics 
Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventura, proves Ruysbroeck 
already master of his language and of his expository method. 
The writer chooses from the sacred books a text, the words 
of which supply him with the main lines of development. 
Manifestly this process is bound to be subjective. Historical 
nature of the text, real meaning of words, exegesis: these 
are largely sacrificed. From the pedagogic point of view, 
however, this arbitrary division signally aided the memory 
by linking up the various parts of the book and referring 
them all to the central idea constantly being brought out 
by the text. In addition, the better to facilitate memorisa- 
tion, at the end of the main divisions Ruysbroeck brings 
together the principal teachings in rhythmic form, which deals 
first with the positive ideal to be advanced and then with 
the obstacles, the errors to be avoided. 

Here is an instance: 


If one would possess the divine gift of knowledge along with all the 
discretion resulting therefrom, 


There is needed a tranquil spirit, 

One that, spite of tumult, 

Can maintain itself in perfect peace. 

And then ever bear with like dispassion 
Accusation, malediction and lamenting, 

Also the oddities of each man and woman; 

One that can judge all things righteously, etc., etc. 


Obstacles, however, arise, preventing the full possession 
of the gift of knowledge: 


The great desires of virtue 

Without right discretion 

Are opposed to true knowledge. 

To blend disquietude of heart 

With every act of virtue, 

Is to impede discernment ... 

To esteem oneself greatly 

And tolerate nothing in another 

Is to have no longer any self-knowledge, etc... .} 


1 Chapter xix. Van Mierlo thinks that the lines which break up the work of 
Ruysbroeck are due to the first copyist, but he recognises that this is only a 
personal impression. He cannot believe that a master-writer like Ruysbroeck 
could have composed such mediocre lines. “This maker of bouts-rimés,” he says, 
“makes worse rhyme than a schoolboy of twelve.” Dietsche Warande . . ., 


IQOI, P. 274. 


BLOEMARDINNE 8 3 


It will be to the purpose, as regards The Book of the 
Kingdom of God’s Lovers, to examine carefully how Ruys- 
broeck cuts up his text, so as to find in it the main divisions 
of his task. The text is taken from the book of Solomon, 
chapter v. verse x.: Fustum deduxit Dominus per vias rectas 
et ostendit 1llt regnum Det. 


(i.) Dominus explains the sovereignty of God in creation 
and incarnation (chapter 1.). 

(1) Deduxit: this is the return of the creature, separated 
from God, by means of the redeeming Christ and the seven 
sacraments (chapter 11.). 

(in) Fustum : by what signs is the righteous man known, 
and what are his prerogatives in the active life and in the 
contemplative life? (chapter 111.) 

(iv.) Vias rectas: what are the true paths the upright 
man must follow to return to God? This is the whole of 
human psychology according to scholastic philosophy: the 
sensible and external path; the path of natural light with 
the virtues and the higher faculties; in a word, the path 
supernatural, i.e. the working of the Holy Spirit in the soul 
through his seven gifts (chapters 1v.-xxxvi.). 

(v.) Ostendit regnum Dei. Ruysbroeck distinguishes five 
kingdoms: the sensible kingdom or the universe; the natural 
kingdom, i.e. the universe seen in the light of grace; the 
kingdom of the Scriptures; the kingdom of grace; and lastly 
the kingdom which is God himself possessed by superessential 
contemplation (chapters xxxvii.—xlli.). 


From beginning to end the book is a refutation of the 
false mystics, especially of Bloemardinne and of the sup- 
porters of the Free Spirit. Ruysbroeck’s intention is to 
combat dangerous reveries by pointing to the true paths 
which lead to God. The Kingdom, then, is a veritable treatise 
of mysticism. 

All the same, Ruysbroeck was not wholly satisfied with 
his work; only at a later date did he allow it to be published. 
At least, this is what the prologue of brother Gérard informs 


84 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
us. After saying that The Kingdom was Ruysbroeck’s first 


treatise, Gérard states that he finds certain passages obscure. 


I screwed up my courage [he relates], and, with a few of our brothers, 
we addressed Master Jan, praying him to enlighten us personally regarding 
certain profound passages we found in his books. Especially in his first 
work, where he dwells at length on the gift of counsel, there was much to 
perplex us. Therefore we begged him kindly to help us. In his great good- 
ness and notwithstanding the inconvenience it must have caused him, he 
walked the five leagues that separated us. ... When I spoke to him myself 
of the passages that had proved a stumbling-block . . . he answered with 
the utmost benevolence. He said he did not know that this book had 
reached us and that the fact of the work being known was displeasing to 
him. It was his first book. As a matter of fact, it was a priest—one who 
had been Master Jan’s secretary (die der Jans notarius gheweest hadde)— 
who had secretly brought it to us, so that we might copy it. On hearing 
this, I proposed to return the book to him. He answered that he would 
write another book, to explain The Kingdom, and in it he would fully 
express himself and point out the doubtful words. This he did, and it 
is the fifth book on this lst, a book beginning with the words: The 
Prophet Samuel. 

Ruysbroeck, however, did not wait until then before con- 
tinuing the theme of The Kingdom and giving it a more 
satisfactory form. 

Such was the occasion of the appearance of his great 
work, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, written in 
all probability between the years 1335-40. Regarding this 
new book, Ruysbroeck declares to Gérard “that he con- 
sidered it to be sure and good.” ? Like The Kingdom, it is a 
treatise on practical mysticism, though composed after a 
new plan and a considerably more concise method. Here the 
guiding text is a sentence taken from the parable of the 
Wise and Foolish Virgins: Ecce... sponsus venit . . . exite 
| obviam e1 (Matt. xxv. 6). This text Ruysbroeck 
applies to the spiritual life as subdivided by the Pseudo- 
Dionysius: the active or beginning life; the intimate or 
illuminative life; the contemplative or unitive life. To each 
of these stages correspond the four movements indicated by 
the text: ecce is the vision, the indispensable principle of the 
spiritual life; sponsus venit is the object of the vision, the 
Christ who comes to meet the human soul into which he 


1 Prologue, in Bijdragen . . ., pp. 12-14. 
? Bigdragen . . ., p. 15: seide ht dat hi dat hielde over seker ende goet. 


BLOEMARDINNE 85 


inspires new virtues; exite is the determination of the soul 
which goes to meet the bridegroom; obviam ei is the mystic 
union, the consummation of the spiritual marriage. 

The image of the mystic marriage was a frequent theme 
in the religious literature of the Middle Ages. In 1246 Thomas 
de Cantimpré made it the schema for his biography of Saint 
Lutgarde de Tongres. But nowhere has the subject been set 
forth in so harmonious and complete an ensemble as in 
Ruysbroeck’s chef-d’euvre. Bohringer rightly calls it die 
Perle seiner Schriften, die kunstreichste mystische Schrift der 
germanischen Mystik, ein wabrhaft architektonisches Gebäude. 
The symmetry of the parts is carefully arranged. The writer 
begins with a general statement of the main ideas he pro- 
poses to develop. Then he condenses and revolves them in 
his mind until they have yielded all they are capable of 
giving, to the least details. He never passes on to another 
division without summing up his conclusions in the previous 
one, so that the reader is constantly being carried along 
by the successive concatenation of ideas, without clash or 
rupture. The result really is, as has been said, a cathedral 
with broad and spacious arches; not a saint is missing 
from his niche of gold, and the voice of God alone is heard 
throughout the immense vaults. 

In addition to these two great treatises, Ruysbroeck 
wrote several other works during his life as a lay-priest. 

Let us take first The Sparkling Stone. Brother Gérard 
relates that 


Ruysbroeck was one day conversing with a hermit on the spiritual 
life. Just as they were separating, the hermit earnestly begged him to 
write down the questions about which they had been speaking, in order 
that others, as well as himself, might be edified thereby. It was in answer 
to this request that Master Jan composed this book, which, of itself alone, 
contains sufficient instruction to lead man to the perfect life.t 


This treatise is closely connected with The Adornment of 
the Spiritual Marriage, being a continuation of the same 
teaching. Its composition, however, is somewhat lax, and 
its development interrupted by frequent interrogations. It 


1 Prologue, in Bijdragen ..., pp. 16-17. 
I 


86 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


may be that these questions form part of the conversation 
related by brother Gérard. The title is taken from a verse 
in Saint John’s Revelation, chapter ii. verse 17: “To him that 
overcometh will I give a white stone.” 

Then comes The Book of the Four Temptations, manifestly 
inspired by the necessities of practical ministry. Ruysbroeck 
warns the faithful against four errors which appear to have 
been widespread in his day: the seeking after personal com- 
fort, the pharisaical spirit, pride of intellect and in particular 
the quietism of the false mystics. 

Some there are who think they have reached the highest point in the 
contemplative life and so despise all interior discipline. Nevertheless, had 
they passed a single moment in true contemplation, they would have 
understood that the very angels and saints are eternally engaged in love 
and desire, in actions of grace and praise, in will and knowledge. God 
himself is ever at work; without effort no one can attain to a state of 
beatitude. From neglect of all this comes every departure from freedom 
of spirit. 

This book introduces nothing fresh. The temptations 
against which Ruysbroeck warns his readers he had already 
examined at greater length in his first two works. We must 
therefore look upon this tract as a work of vulgarisation in 
which our author brings within the reach of the faithful the 
doctrine he had already set forth in more explicit terms. 

Finally we have a small catechism for popular use: The 
Treatise of the Christian Faith. If Christian faith is the only 
means which the soul possesses of uniting with God, it is 
important to know it well. It is contained in its entirety in 
the so-called Apostles’ symbol. This tract is a paraphrase of 
all the articles of the symbol. Certain pages, those dealing 
with eternal life, for instance, are extremely fine. The list 
of celestial beatitudes and of infernal penalties forms a 
veritable anthology. 

Gérard de Groote was particularly fond of this little 
book, which he calls: ominologium aeternae sapientiae. In 
a letter published by De Ram,! he expresses himself as 

1 Bull. de la Commission royale d'Histoire, II., 3rd series, pp. 106, 108. The 


same letter, published by Kist and Royaards in Archief voor kerkgeschiedents, 
t. VIII. p. 255, bears the express mention: libellum Ruesbroecs de fide. 


BLOEMARDINNE 87 


follows: Rogo, gira oculum tuum ad me modicum et lege capt- 
tulum de arte moriendi quod habetur in Ominologio (Horologio) 
acternae sapientiae. . . . Lege libellum, rogo, Rusebroec, ubi 
proponuntur tibi a gloria infinita factorum poenaque et mala 
malorum. Adverte quae poena in videndo, in audiendo, in 
tangendo in odorando et gustandomalis exhibeatur. 

Thus by his writings did Ruysbroeck enlarge his sphere 
of influence: multis in seculo per suae conversationis eminen- 
tiam potioris vitae fuisset speculum et exemplar. 

Still, he never allowed himself to become wholly engrossed 
in outside activities. He continually returned to the sources 
of his inspiration and questioned his God in the silence, 
content to repeat afterwards the whisperings of that mys- 
terious voice. 

It was soon to lead him to the heights where human 
speech and clamour die away. 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. vi. 


CHAPTER VI 
CONVERSION 


THERE is no writer so disinterested as to prevent something 
of his soul from appearing in his work, however apparently 
impersonal it may be. Is not the system of the most detached 
philosopher, of Spinoza, for instance, more than all else a 
sort of interior autobiography? 

Thus one can only understand a man truly by applying 
to him the sole method which takes into account the develop- 
ment of life and the evolution of thought: the historical 
_ method. It alone is capable of explaining a man by those 
combinations which, in life, are set up between the various 
elements that make up a personality. 

With an individual like Ruysbroeck, one can determine 
from childhood the permanent elements of this potent 
originality: the man is the outcome of the child. In the 
case of his spiritual development, however, these elements 
have not remained linked in the same way. For some there 
have been prolonged outshoots, for others strange retarda- 
tions, both harmonised by a balanced and thoroughly sound 
nature. The soul is still the same, though its aspects change, 
like surface water which reflects the waving foliage of a 
tree or is suddenly stirred by a dropped stone or by the 
wing of a bird. 

Beneath the outer complexity, therefore, our problem is 
to find the deep inner harmony between the man and 
his thought. 

And in the solution of this problem the only known 
quantity that can be taken into consideration is the work 
itself, interpreted in the light of events. 

88 


CONVERSION 89 


For this purpose there is no document so important as 
The Book of the Spiritual Tabernacle. 

Regarded as isolated and detached from life, this is but 
a long tiresome allegory, full of extravagant motives, a sort 
of mystic reverie in which the most extraordinary images 
and characters chase one another, as in a fevered brain. 
Related to external circumstances, however, the book be- 
comes clear as a mirror. The symbols resolve themselves 
into realities, the allegory becomes the docile interpreter of 
truth. No longer have we a visionary stammering on the 
threshold of the infinity he has just glimpsed; we are in 
contact with a man revealing his secret. 


I 


How did Ruysbroeck come to leave the active ministry 
and his mission as a reformer and shut himself within the 
walls of the cloister? The answer is far less simple than 
Pomerius imagines: jam dudum in vertice montis positus 
et radis divinae contemplationis mtrabiliter 1llustratus. Here 
there is something more than the surrender of a soul natur- 
ally following the stream: the determination of a mind 
whose motives remain to be sought. 

In our opinion, we shall find these motives concealed 
beneath the allegorical ornamentation of The Tabernacle. 

This voluminous treatise is nothing else than a vast 
glorification of the mystic life within the bosom of the 
Church. Ruysbroeck may have been inspired by Hugues 
de Saint-Victor’s book, de Arca Noe moralt. Nevertheless, 
he treats the subject quite differently, the analogy being 
based not on the ark of Noah but on the ark of the Covenant. 

The spiritual tabernacle is the goal to which the Christian 
life should tend, a life which Ruysbroeck describes as a race 
of love (loep der minnen), following Saint Paul’s expression: 
“So run, that ye may obtain ” (1 Cor. ix. 24). Before making 
a start, one must fulfil various conditions of a moral and 
religious order. 


go RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Here begins the building of the spiritual temple after the 
model of the tabernacle built by Moses (Exod. xxv.—xxviii.). 

We will not pursue this complicated allegory, so foreign 
to the mentality of this age. With a profusion of detail 
Ruysbroeck describes the outer court, a symbol of the moral 
life in external works, the sacrificial altar, which typifies 
the sensible unity of the heart (gevoelligke éénigheid des 
harten); he mystically interprets the names of the architect 
Beleseel as the intellect, and of the joiner Oliab as the will.t 
There is not a detail of the furnishing or of the sacrifice with- 
out its mystical signification: the hangings, the columns, 
the curtain-rings, the six branches of the candlestick and 
the twelve stones on the high-priest’s robe, the spices that 
make up the holy oil and the various categories of sacrificial 
beasts. For two hundred pages the parallel is followed with- 
out a break. It is also fatiguing for the reader. All the same, 
some of the pages are very fine. From his well-furnished 
palette, Ruysbroeck borrows the most dazzling tints, but 
the ever-changing effects tire the eye with the brilliance of 
the successive flashes of colour. 

Besides, this compact work lacks unity. The thread of 
the narrative is frequently broken to make room for 
digressions that have no apparent connection with the sub- 
ject. One would think the author had, time after time, 
abandoned his work to take it up at a later date, and then 
again had left it. 

Nevertheless, Ruysbroeck had been careful at the outset 
to draw up a plan of his book. All this betrays extreme trouble, 
and the suppressions in the text are no less interesting 
psychologically than is the work as a whole. 

The third degree of the spiritual life is included in the 
fourth part (ii. pp. 8-20). Instead of describing in the fifth 
part the holy place and showing that it prefigured the 
spiritual life in its second stage of development, the author 


1 To show Ruysbroeck’s fondness for allegory, we will cite only the following 
incident. Beleseel’s grandfather was named Hur, and his father Huri, meaning 
the grace of God. The’ Jews aspired after this grace, and this is indicated by 
the aspirate H. The Christians, having found this grace, write simply Uri. 


CONVERSION gi 


introduces a veritable treatise on the Church and on the lives 
of ecclesiastics (ii. pp. 21-144). These digressions, devoted 
to the ideal Church, are full of invective against the disorderly 
lives of the clergy. It is evident that Ruysbroeck, moved by 
the profanation of the sanctuary, is here expressing his 
pain and sorrow. He is confronted with the question as 
to whether it is possible to find salvation in the Church as 
it revealed itself to be, faithless, rapacious and immodest. 
And yet, he adds, 

the priesthood must be revered above all existing states in heaven or 
on earth: whosoever despises the priesthood despises Christ and his 
Apostles . .. for the loftier the state the deeper the fall; the more honours 
there are that accompany sin here below, the greater confusion and shame 


there will be above; the more pleasures and joys there are in this world, 
the more pains and torments there will be in the next.l 


Brother Gérard tells us in his Prologue? that, when recopy- 
ing The Tabernacle, he omitted everything that dealt with 
the ecclesiastical life. 

Not without reason have I omitted to reproduce Ruysbroeck’s account 
of the state of the holy Church. For he deplored the fact that it had fallen 


so low and that this fall had continued from its very beginning . . . besides, 
these invectives will be found in other copies of his book. 


To the critic, these digressions, especially the one contained 
in chapters cxxv. to cxliv., have a greater value than the one 
dealing with the state of the Church: they are a revelation 
of unknown suffering, of a real spiritual crisis. From another 
quarter we know that the book was composed at two different 
times. Indeed the large manuscript A of Groenendael in- 
forms us that hunc librum edidit Dominus Johannes Ruys- 
broeck pro magna parte adhuc presbyter secularis existens, 
residuum autem post ingressum religionis complevit. 

As the taking of the vows is dated the roth of March 
1349, an interval of seven or eight years elapses between 
the two parts of the book. The break is easily seen, for there 
is quite a different atmosphere at the end of the work, 
written in the sheltered peace of Groenendael. The invec- 


1 Chapter cxviii. ? Budragen ..., pp. 15-16. 


92 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


tives certainly belong to the first period. At Groenendael, 
Ruysbroeck, now appeased, resumed his work and added 
Parts VI. and VII. He first describes the Holy of Hollies, 
which symbolises the union of the soul with God, realised 
by adding the graces of God on to the works of man. Finally, 
in a short chapter (il. pp. 243-5), Ruysbroeck shows us man 
peacefully enjoying the fruits of contemplation. 

Such is this book which long remained Ruysbroeck’s 
favourite, no doubt because he had put in it so much of 
himself. Gérard Naghel tells of the extraordinary favour it 
met with: 

As regards The Tabernacle, it speaks for itself; no one in the holy 
Church, from the Pope down to the humblest worshipper, could read it 
understandingly without receiving spiritual benefit thereby. Thus does it 
glorify its author, for it contains several truths grievously forgotten, 
drawn from the most difficult texts in Scripture, truths which, when they 
all unite in the soul, form one with it, as the tabernacle formed one with 
all that it contained.? 

Some of the manuscripts have incorporated into the text 
glosses drawn from Flavius Josephus and from the Historia 
scholastica of Petrus Trecensis, alias Comestor. It is possible 
that Ruysbroeck may have utilised this history, which was 
famous in the Middle Ages; perhaps he alludes to it when 
he says: die meester sprect in der Istorien, or Nu vent men in 
der historien? But the glosses are certainly not the work of 
Ruysbroeck. The manuscript D, of 1461, one of considerable 
authority, does not contain them. Moreover, brother Gérard 
says that he enriched his transcription of The Tabernacle 
with “glosses borrowed from other doctors, concerning the 
external form of the tabernacle, not in order to correct the 
author, but that his intelligent and prudent readers might 
learn something more.” 3 


4 Bijdragen’. ..., Pp. 15, 
* David, t. II. pp. 56, 100, 134, 148. 
* Budragen..., p. 15; David, t. I. p. 11; De Vreese, Biogr. nat., col. 532. 


CONVERSION 93 


IT 


Can we obtain further light upon the events which drove 
Ruysbroeck to the cloister ? 

Pomerius refers to trifling episodes as influencing him. 
Surius briefly declares that “to devote himself more fully 
and profoundly to divine contemplation, Ruysbroeck for- 
sook the world, along with a few companions. By divine 
illumination, he had seen that for him solitude would hence- 
forth be more favourable to contemplation.” ! Gérard Naghel 
simply mentions his departure from Brussels.? Nowhere do 
the documents speak of a moral crisis, an interior change 
culminating in a sudden determination. 

Though not clearly formulated, however, interior ex- 
perience does exist; one may read between the lines, and 
it is possible to reconstitute its main developments. 

Still, we must not expect to find here the illumination of 
a Saint Paul smitten on the road to Damascus, the cries of 
a Saint Augustine, the vigorous repudiation of the past of a 
Saint Francis, or the intellectual humiliations of a Pascal. 
The divine influence upon human souls cannot be referred 
to a single type, identically reproduced in every case. Only 
the character of this influence remains permanent: the fact 
that beneath the varying modalities a drama is being enacted. 

Whether the soul engages in combat with the evil forces 
from which it would escape to take refuge in God, or whether 
it silently questions itself and confronts the ideal with the 
inadequate reality, a drama is always being enacted. Here 
it suddenly manifests, borrowing its fire and fury from 
passion, on which it is dependent. There, on the other hand, 
it abandons itself to silence, and expands, like subterranean 
water seeking an outlet. Here the struggle is with the world, 
the exacting and rebellious flesh. There the fight is con- 
fined to the heart and the intellect. But it has justly been 


L Vita Rusbrochit, cap. v. * Bijdragen ..., p. 8. 


94 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


remarked that, in the case of mystics, sudden crises are 
exceptional. 

All, or almost all, have grown up beneath the shadow of the cloisters 
in which they are mostly to pass their lives; they have, if we may so express 
it, faith within their very blood... . Still, however united their lives, there 
will some time come a crisis that will tear them from the world, once for 
all, and fling them upon God, body and soul. This decisive crisis they call 
their conversion. Some insignificant and generally fortuitous circumstance 
apparently determines this conversion; really it is the culmination of 
prolonged interior processes.1 


This interior leaven is not always perceptible to con- 
sciousness; it may rather be said to be connected with the 
subconscious life. Still, it is invariably a process of organisa- 
tion. Divided within himself, man seeks after unity. He feels 
that the inexpressible discomfort from which he suffers is 
due to disharmony in his interior life. Long does the inde- 
cisive wavering self suffer and aspire, without yet being 
capable of self-realisation. During this period the same 
symptoms are uniformly to be encountered, until peace is 
established. Then in some we have a sudden irruption of 
a sense of deliverance (crisis), in others a gradual regenera- 
tion which may justly be compared to the path of an 
ascending spiral. 

If we enter more fully into this interior process, we 
notice that the symptoms characterising it, a feeling of 
depression and imperfection, exaggerated scrupulosity, 
morbid self-analysis, etc., are due to the unstable centre of 
gravity of the moral life. In other terms, the group of ideas 
and feelings that dominate the thought of a man and deter- 
mine his conduct is displaced. There are thus created what 
have been called various fields of consciousness which some- 
times rapidly follow one another, like plates slipped one 
after another into the frame of a magic-lantern. Man lets 
himself go and regains possession of himself; it is these con- 
tinual oscillations that constitute his pain. This suffering will 
cease only when a fresh centre of gravity has been deter- 


1De Montmorand, Psychologie des mystiques catholiques orthodoxes, Paris, 
1920, pp. 12-14. 


CONVERSION 95 


mined, one towards which will converge all the thoughts, 
formerly scattered, though now grouped together. 

Crystallisation gives the best idea of this grouping: if we 
plunge a crystal into a solution containing several bodies in 
process of saturation, from the depths of the solution, by a 
mysterious attraction, come the molecules of like nature 
with the crystal to combine with it. The monoïdeism of con- 
version is nothing else than a crystallisation around an ideal 
of those elements that possess the same tendency. So that 
we can say with H. Delacroix: “The convert is a man who 
reorganises his moral life around a new principle; in him 
there takes place a transformation, a recomposition, a 
reintegration of the self.” 1 | 

Needless to say, this organisation of the moral life comes 
about in accordance with different coefficients, represented 
by environment, atmosphere, temperament. To arrive at the 
same result, the Catholic will attach greater importance to 
the efficacy of the sacraments than will the Protestant, who 
is rather dominated by a sense of sin. The active will use 
mighty efforts of will; the meditative will attach greater 
importance to the process of incubation. But the divers 
classifications set up by psychologists may all be referred to 
two quite distinct types: the one wherein conversion possesses 
the violent and decisive characteristics of a catastrophe; the 
other wherein regeneration comes about by a lengthy process. 


This granted once for all, is it possible to say to which 
of these two types may be referred the conversion of Ruys- 
broeck? To determine this, let us listen to Ruysbroeck 
himself : 


When the righteous man continues in his poverty, recognising in 
himself nothingness, wretchedness, impotence; when he perceives himself 
to be utterly incapable of progress or perseverance; when he counts the 
multitude of his faults and neglected duties; when he appears to himself 


1 La Religion et la Foi, p. 331. William James also says: “To say that a 
man is ‘converted’ means, in these terms, that religious ideas, previously peri- 
pheral in his consciousness, now take a central place, and that religious aims form 
the habitual centre of his energy.” The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 196. 


96 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


as he is in the reality of his indigence . . . then he knows his own misery. 
He acknowledges his distress, and exhibits it with groans and moanings 
before the mercy-seat of God. 1 

Again: 

When man considers, in the depths of his nature, with eyes burning 
with love, the immensity of God and his faithfulness; when he reflects 
on his essence and his love, his benefits that can add nothing to his happi- 
ness; when man, at a subsequent time, has counted how often he has 
assailed his great and faithful Lord, he turns upon his own being with 
such indignation and scorn of self that he no longer knows what to do to 
express his horror. He knows no scorn profound enough to satisfy himself. 
He feels that the scorn he merits is greater than that of which he thinks. 
He falls into a strange astonishment, amazement, that he cannot despise 
himself deeply enough, and he remains undecided before the weakening 
of his powers. In this state of perplexity, the best thing to do is to com- 
plain to his God, his Lord and his friend, of the might of his disdain. . . 
Man then resigns himself to the will of God, and, in strictest abnegation, 
finds true, invincible and perfect peace, the peace that nothing can disturb.” 


These passages are characteristic. They confirm, as regards 
Ruysbroeck, the theory maintained by psychologists: that 
mystics, once their mind is made up, rely upon God for all 
the interior activity which is to lead them to conversion. 
They are types of conversion by self-surrender, as William 
James says. They surrender themselves into the hands of 
God, “like a rag in the mouth of a dog.” 3 

This utter self-surrender to God, who, they know, can 
do that whereof they are incapable, then becomes the pro- 
pelling idea which, acting by a process of incubation or 
UNCONSCIOUS cerebration, will bring them to that condition 
of inexpressible relief created by harmonisation of the se/f.4 


{if 


It now remains for us to seek in the documents for argu- 
ments in support of our theory, to discover, if possible, the 
influences and interior developments which, in combining, 
led Ruysbroeck to this state of harmony. 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter vi. 

2 Rusbrock, by Hello, pp. 97-8. Compare The Spiritual Marriage, book I. 
chapter xiv. 

3 Suso, L’Exemplaire, chapter xxii., quoted by Montmorand, op. cit., 16. 

4 Compare the remarkable analysis of Pascal’s conversion by Emile Boutroux, 
Pascal (Col. des grands écrivains français), pp. 68 ss. 


CONVERSION 97 


The disorderly composition of The Tabernacle, wherein 
preoccupations of professional morale constitute an ensemble 
disproportionate to the work and outside the object aimed 
at; the bitterness of tone, even the sarcasm; the sudden 
break we thought we could discern in the text itself: all 
these appear to indicate the line of thought which must 
have dominated the mind of Ruysbroeck, in Brussels, between 
the years 1340 and 1343. 

We see both scrupulousness and dissatisfaction, the dis- 
harmony between the tendencies of the man and the possi- 
bilities offered by his environment. On the other hand, we 
have seen that the controversy between Ruysbroeck and 
Bloemardinne had not failed to rouse popular animosity 
against him. For here we must give only a modified credence 
to the biographer who dithyrambically extols the crushing 
out of heresy. This latter, on the contrary, by adapting itself 
to the popular aspirations after independence, daily increased 
in strength, and aimed at nothing less than the downfall of 
the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The clergy, discredited by their 
morals, had nothing to set against these vigorous outpourings 
of the revolutionary spirit. 

Ruysbroeck evidently suffered from an environment 
ravaged by simony and cupidity, corrupt to the core and 
devoid of the true spirit of devotion. In mediocre circles, a 
person is but imperfectly understood; his intentions are 
suspected and his actions misconstrued by envy or stupidity. 

Thus there grew up around Ruysbroeck an atmosphere 
of concealed hostility; it may be that ambushes were set 
for him by the less scrupulous. In these conditions, an active 
ministry must have seemed utterly opposed to the aspirations 
after spiritual purity that filled his soul. 

These sorrows were shared by the other members of the 
small mystic circle that had collected round the canon, Jan 
Hinckaert. These pious priests endeavoured worthily to do 
their work. They suffered, however, from the unedifying 


1 Psalmis et hymnis Domino servientes, omni vigilantia horas canonicas solvere 
divinisque alacriter interesse satagebant, Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xiii. 


98 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


attitude of restless and officious chaplains, who had no 
respect for the holy place (capellanorum inquietudines). The 
faithful imitated the priests: they did not scruple to continue 
their disputings and conversations (secularium strepitus et 
rumores) during divine worship. Finally, there was a certain 
chanter, Godefridus Kerreken, whose common and guttural 
voice robbed the services of any possible solemnity.? This 
was so pronounced that on more than one occasion the 
pious celebrants had to break up the service and begin the 
mass over again in their own homes? 

Tired of the struggle (victi taedio), after enduring these 
evils for a number of years the two canons and their chap- 
lain decided to try to find a mode of life more in conformity 
with their aspirations. | 

These details, carefully pointed out by Pomerius, indicate 
the characteristic feature of many mystics: lack of adapta- 
tion to their environment. The mystic feels incapable of 
self-realisation in the world of men. 

This is expressed in the discourse—which has come down 
to us—of Franco de Coudenberg to Jan Hinckaert: 

Mi pater, dilectissime et domine, quoniam devotiont nostrae nequimus 
ad plenum satisfacere, quamdiu fuerimus in hoc seculo : ad satisfaciendum 
nostro proposito unum videretur multum expediens, ut videlicet seorsum a 
communi hominum frequentia locum eligamus solitarium, in quo libere et 
absque scrupulo, juxta ordinis dignitatem, horas quiete solvere, devotiont 
vacare et conscientits nostris juxta votorum exigentiam possimus fideliter 
providere.8 

But if this discourse really expresses the feelings of the 
small circle of mystics in Brussels, there are reasons to doubt 
that it was actually delivered by Franco. At all events, Franco 
seems to have left Brussels for quite different motives. In- 
deed, his name appears on the banishment lists signed by 
Jean III. after the failure of the siege of Tournai (1340). 
The duke suspected that several of the inhabitants of Brussels 
had allowed themselves to be bought over by the king of 
France. On being arrested, they confessed and were con- 


1 Habuit nimirum ipse vocem tubalem rvudem et dissonam. 
? Lecta velegeve aut seorsum horas suas in privato dicere. 
# Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xiv. 


CONVERSION 99 


demned to death. Franco de Coudenberg, accused though 
not convicted of treason, was compelled to leave the city. 
Thus Franco’s departure was but a disguised exile. 


In the heart of the forest of Soignes the dukes of Brabant 
possessed an old shooting-lodge of Jean Il, temporarily 
conceded to Lambert the hermit?: Groenendael or the 
V au-vert. | 

The Vau-vert had been inhabited by three hermits in 
succession. The first, Jean des Bois, of the family of the 
dukes of Brabant, had gone there for penitential reasons at 
the beginning of the fourteenth century: 1bzdem lacrimando 
pro suis vitirs sese viriliter emendaret. The princely penitent 
constructed a primitive retreat, surrounded by a kitchen- 
garden and defended by fosses. The hermitage was ceded to 
Jean de Busco or des Bois in 1304, on the Friday after 
Assumption: 

I quater et mille ter C, tunc floruit ille 
qui viridem vallem fundavit ad aethera callem. 
The deed of gift stipulated that, after the death of Busco, 
the hermitage must be occupied by another religious, ad 
serviendum 1b1 Deo. 

The second hermit, Arnold de Diest, was a holy man 
to whom numerous miracles were attributed. He lived an 
ascetic life at Groenendael, eating mouldy bread, drinking 
beer made of water slightly malted and into which crusts 
of this bread were dipped. When approaching death, this 

1Grammaye, Bruxella, p. 30; Henne and Wauters, Hist. de la ville de Bruxelles, 
t. I. pp. 105-6; III. p. 536. 

? Pomerius, lib. I. cap. vii. In nemore quodam dicta Zonta distante ab oppido 
Bruxellensi duobus fere milliavibus, vallem arboribus undique consitam et plus 
ferinis quam humanis usibus frequentatam. 

3 Miraeus, Opera diplomatica, t. II. p. 779: Nos Joannes . . . Joanni de Buscho 
evemitae domum nostram sitam in nostro nemore Zoniae in loco dicto Groenendael 
(gallice Vauvert) et fossatum quod hactenus de licentia nostra ibidem fecit, cum 
spatio intra fossatum dictum contendo, tenendam quamdiu vixerit conferimus. Ita 
ut, si eum alibi transferri vel mort contingat, ex tunc in posterum alter religiosus ad 
sevviendum 1bi Deo perpetuis temporibus morabitur. — Datum die Veneris post 


Assumpt. Virg. Mar. 1304. à 
4 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. iv. 


100 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


pious anchorite had a vision. On being asked if he wished to 
be buried at Hoelaert, his parish, he replied: 

No, wrap my body in my cloak and bury it in this cell.” 

“But this is not consecrated ground, brother Arnold!” 

“Within a short time, my dear brethren, this place will be a monastery 
in which will dwell devout and religious men who will honour God and 
become the fruitful seed of a holy generation.” 1 

Ruysbroeck, with the approval of his friends, betook 
himself to Lambert, the hermit who had succeeded Arnold, 
and begged him to give up the place to them. Lambert 
agreed to do so (cedit Lambertus non coactus sed libere) and 
himself settled down a distance of two leagues away, in the 
solitary vale of Botendale.? 

Permission had also to be obtained from the duke of 
Brabant. Accordingly the three friends requested the author- 
isation of Jean III. to accept the assignment offered them by 
Lambert. The deed of surrender of the Vau-vert, on the 
territory of Hoelaert, was signed at Brussels on the fourth 
day of the Easter festival, 1343, in favour of Franco Frigido 
Montanus In addition to the hermitage, the duke conceded 
the large pond close by and some additional land on con- 
dition there were erected on the spot a dwelling for five 
religious, two of whom at least should be priests (wiventes 
religiose). The deed also stipulated that in the hermitage 
there should be held services in honour of God, of Mary, of 
the saints and the elect. 

Ruysbroeck was now fifty years of age.* 

Everything being in order, the three friends, followed 
by Jean d’Afflighem, the good cook, left Brussels at the 
beginning of the spring of 1343. 

They were soon overshadowed beneath the lofty foliage 
of the forest, as beneath the vaulted arches of a cathedral. 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. vi. 

? Sanderus, Chorographia sacra Brabantiae, t. II. p. 17; Pomerius, lib. I. 
cap. vii. 

3 Feria quarta in festis paschalibus anno Domini MCCCXI et III. Miraeus, 
Op. diplom., t. I. p. 781; De Windesemensi Lateranensi Avoasiensi et aliis con- 
gregationibus canonicorum veguiarium accessit vita et translatio corporis J. Rus- 
broquii anno 1622. A. Miraeus publicabat, cap. i. 

* He was not sixty, as Pomerius says in error (sexagenarius), lib. II. cap. vi. 


CHAPTER VII 


GROENENDAEL (LE VAU-VERT) 


I 


THE vale of Groenendael, in which is mirrored a whole chaplet 
of ponds, lies in the heart of the forest of Soignes. It gathers 
the running waters from the three valleys tributary to 
the Yssche. 

In the fourteenth century the forest group designated 
by the term of Zonia or Sonien, relics of the immense coal- 
bearing forest of primitive times, extended right to the first 
enceinte of the capital, the spot now occupied by the Place 
Royale and the Parc de Bruxelles. Even in those days it 
was an almost impenetrable barrier, an inextricable mass of 
undergrowth covered chiefly with oaks, beeches and firs; 
hardy species which found the requisite sap beneath the 
layer of pebbles washed down by the heavy rains. Except 
on the rough slopes of the fir-plantations, the soil almost 
entirely disappeared beneath the towering fern and bracken 
which still constitute the glory of the old forest. 

From the most distant times this group of trees has been 
designated by various names which evidently have one 
common root: Sungia, Sonia, Zonia, Sonien. Are we to find 
here an echo of the solar cult celebrated, as Tacitus thinks, 
in the Belgian forest: dicatum soli lucum dicebant? In the 
Germanic languages the shining orb of day is, indeed, 
designated by such words as sun, son, zon. It is more likely 
that the forest obtained its name from the principal river 
running through it: the Senne, which in a deed of 1179 is 
called Sonna. 


The history of the duchy of Brabant is inseparable from 
K IOI 


102 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the forest of Soignes. In the twelfth century the German 
suzerains had feoffed it to the dukes of Brabant, who obtained 
from it the greater part of their revenue. It was also overrun 
with game and thus a famous hunting-ground. 

To preserve and protect their domain, the dukes had 
created a series of new dignities in favour of the nobility. 
There was the master of the hounds of Brabant (opper- 
jaeger), the gruyer or warren-master (warant-meester), the 
comte d’eau (watergrave), charged with protecting the fishing, 
the comte de plume (plumgrave), whose duty it was to attend 
to the feathered game. These chief officers, along with their 
assistants, composed the great ducal hunting-train, instituted 
at Boitsfort by Jean I., the victor of Woeringen. 

The dukes scrupulously preserved the integrity of the 
forest; to no nobleman did they grant the right to build 
his dwelling in it. All the same, having respect for the sacred 
character of the forest, which was said to have been planted 
by the very hand of God, they willingly conceded to certain 
religious and monks plots of ground for building their 
hermitages. 

Grammaye asserts that, at the time of Thomas de Can- 
timpré, the forest depths provided refuge for nearly a 
thousand anchorites. 

When Ruysbroeck set up his hermitage at Vau-vert, 
there were already three convents in the forest of Soignes: 
a house of Cistercian nuns, founded in 1201 by Henri Premier, 
who granted to sister Gisle a site named Pennebeek, to build 
thereon a monastery in honour of God and of the Virgin; a 
convent of Benedictine nuns, at Forest, founded by the 
chevalier Gilbert de Gand and transferred into the forest 
of Soignes in 1107; and the Val-Duchesne, a cloister of 
Dominican sisters, the foundation of which in 1262 was 
due to the generosity of the duchess Aleyde, widow of 
Henri III. le Débonnaire. In addition to these important 
buildings were numerous hermitages which subsequently 
became the priory of Groenendael, the monastery of Rouge- 
cloitre, the convent of Sept-fontaines, etc. 


GROENENDAEL 103 


No wonder the forest speedily became the cradle of 
innumerable pious legends. It was said that Saint Hubert 
had come there to die, that his fast-closing eyes might gaze 
upon the sylvan splendour. In the thirteenth century Thomas 
de Cantimpré told of the benign appearance of Christ to 
Elisabeth de Gravia.t Ruysbroeck was certainly acquainted 
with this incident, and must frequently have reflected on it 
when sunk in meditation beneath the murmuring beech- 
groves. 


In Brabant the very devout Elisabeth de Gravia was one day accom- 
panied by another sister of like virtue and devotion, going from Nivelle 
to Leulos, about two leagues distant. Finding themselves near a wood, 
and having lost their way, there being no one at hand from whom they 
might inquire, ... they began to shed tears. A young man of rarest beauty 
approaches, greets them and asks where they wish to go. . . . They ask 
the way to Leulos and he says he will lead them there. They follow him 
with the utmost joy and gladness, and with such a feeling of reverence 
that they could not find courage to address him further. Then, when the 
village came in sight, he suddenly disappeared, and they experienced 
great regret at not having further questioned this celestial guide... . 


Such was the refuge which the three friends had chosen 
for themselves. 

No cloister rivals with the open forest, not only for 
bringing absolute peace and calm to the disillusioned heart, 
but for looking up to God with eyes that seek him beyond 
the moving tree-tops. A desert is too empty and its barren- 
ness too oppressive; there, man feels driven back upon him- 
self, confined within his own soul by a scorching and pitiless 
sky. The God he there discovers has not a smile for him. 
The cravings of the flesh, too, instead of being appeased, 
become intensified in that vast solitude, so void of living 
beings though peopled with visions. The forest is truly 
religious: its slender shafts, its vaporous mists lying like 
scarves on the leafy branches, the solemn or plaintive moan- 
ing of the breezes, the never-silent hum of a formidable 
swarm of tiny lives, and the broad patches of daylight made 
by the sun which stands out in the heavens like some glorious 
rose-window: all this recalls the sanctuaries of stone whose 


1 Les Abeilles mystiques, trad. Willaert, 1650, p. 395. 


104 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


primal motives are here in all their eternal novelty. In the 
forest the soul springs aloft, as though urged onward by 
all these up-shooting trees. God appears to it not only with 
smiling visage but in all his might, which, on stormy nights, 
bows giant oaks as well as human hearts. Then does man 
know himself to be feeble and empty-handed, though one 
with that universal life which throbs with the infinite. He 
experiences that mysterious sense of brotherhood which 
unites him with tiny plants and grasses, with the shimmer- 
ing waters peacefully embedded in the shell-like ponds as 
innumerable lives lie enfolded within the great All, with 
the reddish-brown insects scuttling to and fro in the gravel, 
busy as human beings, and on which the finger of death 
has already been laid... . 

It is here that we must look for the secret of Ruys- 
broeck’s meditations; here that he glimpsed, with startling 
clearness, the vast cycle of creation ever returning to its 
source and origin. 


IT 


The first thing for the monks to do was to build a chapel. 
To this object Franco devoted his allodial land and hereditary 
possessions. After obtaining the consent of Guy de Venta- 
dour, archbishop of Cambrai, the religious set to work with 
such energy (agentes viriliter) that on the 17th of March 
1344, the chapel, which possessed two altars, was ready to 
be consecrated by Matthias, bishop of Trébizonde and 
suffragan of Cambrai. On the same day Matthias appointed 
Franco vicar of the new chapel, entrusting to him full control 
over the monks and the servants. 

Our pious anchorites might now hope to devote them- 
selves quietly to a life of contemplation. But they had not 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xv.; Necrolog. Viridisval., fol. 5 v°: sidemque vicarii 
eodem anno et die contulerunt Domino Franconi curam fratrum, familiarum et 
servientium. Praefectus est eis idem Dominus Franco jam dictus in patrem et 
suraium, 


GROENENDAEL 105 


taken into account the ever-watchful animosity of their 
former enemies. 

The biographer naively states: coepit zizania in agrum 
Dominicum hostis nequissimus seminare The departure of 
the two canons and their chaplain had deeply perturbed 
the clergy of Brussels: some approving and the rest blaming 
the cenobites. There was quite a storm in this small ecclesi- 
astical community: tempestas valida et vehemens valde. 

All this disturbance excited the monks of the abbey of 
Saint-Victor. Pierre de Salicibus, their prior, consequently 
addressed a long letter to the hermits of Groenendael, 
severely (non modicum) reproaching them for living apart 
from all rules and for not having submitted their association 
to the approval of the ecclesiastical authority.? Lastly, the 
new congregation, unprovided with any princely or ecclesi- 
astical immunity, was daily disturbed by the duke’s hunts- 
men who carried on ‘des chasses infernales” in the 
neighbourhood. There were the barkings of the pack of 
hounds, the sounding of horns, the demands of hunters for 
food and drink (expensas quotidianas), without mentioning 
the brutalities (molestias) of valets and whippers-in. 

Tired and worn out by these difficulties, Franco, wr 
prudens et circumspectus, assembled his friends to deliberate 
as to the best way of avoiding these disturbances of every 
kind. The entire difficulty arose from their independent situa- 
tion. The violence of the huntsmen might any day occasion 
a conflict, and they would have no protection of any kind. 
On the other hand, so long as the house was not attached to 
a regular order, it could not benefit by the fiscal privileges 
attached to mortmains (per debitam amortisationem). 

Our religious therefore determined to place themselves 
under the protection of some old-established order. They 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xvi. 

* The documents do not agree as to the date of this epistle. The Necrologium 
Viridisval. and Petrus Impens date it as far back as 1365 or 1366. But as the 
monks placed themselves under rules in 1349, its preparation and publication 
must be placed previous to that date. Pomerius appears to be quite right in 
this detail. 


106 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


chose that of the regular canons of Saint Augustine after 
consulting with a friend of Franco, Pierre André, at that 
time bishop of Cambrai. 

On the 1oth of March 1349, they received the habit of 
the regular canons from the hands of Pierre Andre himself: 
assumpto habitu Canonicorum Regularium quem idem epis- 
copus eis tradidit, curam mutans 1n praeposituram. 

Franco was appointed provost, and Ruysbroeck prior. 
Owing to his advanced age, Hinckaert was enabled to retain 
his amice and his title as prebendary. While differing from 
his companions in dress and mode of life, he joined in all 
their religious practices, preferring, says the biographer, to 
do penance with his brethren in solitude rather than to 
return ad vomitum secul11 He was with them as a father 
with his children. But in order not to trouble them, he had 
built for himself a small hut in the vicinity. 

On resuming their regular canons’ habit, the recluses, 
according to brother Gérard, were eight in number, if not 
more. The small band shortly afterwards had their numbers 
increased by the addition of a few sympathetic souls, 
belonging both to the clergy and to the laity. 

For his own part, Ruysbroeck would have preferred to 
remain alone with his two friends. Franco, however, felt 
urged to bring many souls to God, and so Ruysbroeck 
humbly yielded to so excellent a reason, for, adds Gérard 
Naghel, to whom we are indebted for this detail, ‘he knew 
that he could attend to things of this world and at the 
same time find rest in God.” | 

The regularity of their situation soon procured valuable 
privileges for the new religious, both from the bishop of 
Cambrai and from the duke of Brabant, qui sibi eos adop- 
tavit in spirituales dilectos filios. Death was not long before 
visiting the peaceful hermitage; aged and infirm, Jan Hinc- 
kaert fell asleep on the 18th of May 1350, leaving the 
monastery not only a blessed memory but an income in 
perpetuity of twelve florins.? , 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xviii. ? Necrologium Viridisval., ad 18 Maii. 


GROENENDAEL 107 


III 


After the death of the aged canon, Franco took over the 
control of the monastery. Being a man of action rather than 
of contemplation, it was he who brought the priory into 
that amazingly flourishing condition which evokes the 
admiration of the chroniclers. Supervising everything, en- 
couraging the construction of new buildings, stimulating 
the carpenters at their work, he was the real founder of 
the splendour of Groenendael. 

Ruysbroeck, but little adapted to practical life, gave 
himself up to meditation. In solitude, writes Pomerius, his 
youth was renewed as the eagle’s, and as the king of the 
air fixes his gaze upon the sun, so did our mystic fix his 
ardent gaze upon truth alone.! 

Far from delighting, however, in selfish contemplation, 
he was also eager to set an example to the brethren in the 
various duties of the convent. He found satisfaction for his 
deep humility by accepting and performing the most repul- 
sive tasks. He loved to wheel away the contents of the dung- 
heap, or to carry them off in a basket slung over his back.? 
In fasting and watching, in manual work of every kind, he 
surpassed all the rest. Unfortunately his strength was not 
always equal to his willingness. His candid innocence made 
him rather a hindrance than a help to the gardener, for, 
unable to distinguish vegetables from weeds, he rooted up 
both alike.? Such holy simplicity and candour afforded no 
cause for indulgent smiling on the part of the brethren, but 
rather one for abasement and humiliation! 

When thus working, a halo of divine light enveloped 
him. Never did he allow himself to be disturbed or diverted 
from his interior contemplation. He would always toil with 
one hand whilst telling his beads with the other. Often would 

1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. vi. 

2 Jbid., lib. Il. cap. xx.: portans scilicet fimum cum gerula vel aliqua alia 
magis vilia ducens humiliter cum moniga. 


$ Pomerius: Nimirum qui malas a bonis minus dijudicans, eradicando herbas 
mortiferas, bonas similiter exterpavit, 


108 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


he assure his brethren that it was easier for him to raise his 
soul to God in contemplation than to raise his hand to 
his forehead. 

It was his great joy to be with the brethren; then he 
would freely unbosom himself. His piety and his knowledge 
of things divine would overflow like a generous wine from 
the goblet into which it has been poured. At times these 
delightful conversations would last the whole night long, from 
compline to matins. At other times inspiration proved lack- 
ing, whereupon the saint would say, with touching modesty: 
“My dear children, to-day I have nothing to say to you.” 

Certain features of his life recall to mind the gentle Saint 
Francis, who spoke to the birds, or Saint Bernard, who once 
hid in his cloak a hare that was being hunted. He was so 
compassionate, says Pomerius, that his love extended not 
only to reasoning beings but even to suffering beasts. When 
the north wind was blowing, the brethren, who knew him 
well, would slily remark: “Father, it is snowing, what will 
the poor little birds do?” Thereupon his countenance would 
express real sorrow and chagrin. And he would give to the 
birds of heaven, in so far as place and time permitted, that 
whereof they had need.? 

The grace of God formed his sole adornment. It trans- 
figured with beauty his entire person. He preferred to wear 
filthy and worn-out garments, being above all solicitous after 
spiritual ornaments: devotion, patience, obedience. 

He endeavoured to celebrate mass every day: it was a 
keen grief to him when some important reason prevented 
him from doing so. Such interior gentleness did he experi- 
ence before the altar that very often he had not sufficient 
strength to complete the holy sacrifice: tanta dulcedine est 
liquefactus ut vivacitas exteriorum sensuum pene deficiens prae 
dulcore naturae subsidium denegaret. The assistant, in dismay, 
would hurry away to look for another priest.3 


1“ This love, this knowledge of animals is found in all mystics, and more 
generally in all saints.” Montmorand, op. cit., p. 24. 

? Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xxi. 

3 [bid., cap. xxvii. 


GROENENDAEL 109 


As age advanced, his eyesight began to fail, and it was 
dificult for him to distinguish the form of the Host. It 
occasionally happened that, at the elevation, the image of 
the Christ was seen by the worshippers upside down, pedibus 
sursum et capite deorsum. As this weakness of sight became 
more frequent, and as the devout prior one day remained 
motionless before the altar, utterly unable to move his 
limbs, the provost forbade him to officiate in future, through 
fear of a scandal. 

‘‘Father, I beseech you,” sorrowfully answered Ruysbroeck, ‘do not 
on this account prevent me from celebrating the holy sacrifice; this physical 
infirmity, which appears to you the result of old age, is caused by the 
merciful plenteousness of grace divine (non propter senium ; magis est 
divinae gratiae collatum desuper mihi xenium). This very day, the Lord 
Jesus Christ has again come to visit me, filling me with his grace benign 
and saying to me: ‘Thou art mine and I am thine.’’’? 

His patience, too, was as great as his piety. One day, 
finding himself grievously ill in the infirmary, he requested 
the brother nursing him to give him drink, to calm his 
fevered thirst. The sub-prior, on being consulted, refused to 
allow the drink, dreading lest it might make his condition 
worse. Although his mouth was quite parched, Ruysbroeck 
submitted with utmost resignation, cupiens per bonum obe- 
dientiae se Deo magis offerre sacrificium quam carnis con- 
cupiscentiae obtemperare. Shortly afterwards, however, feeling 
utterly faint, and being more perturbed by the grief his 
death would have caused than anxious for his own health: 
“Father prior,” he humbly murmured, “unless I drink now, 
I shall never recover.” The prior, affrighted, replied: “Drink, 
brother; drink as much as you please.” ? 

Gérard Naghel relates another instance of the saint’s 
profound obedience and humility. Summoned to spend a 
few days at the charterhouse of Hérinnes, where the friars 
desired information on certain passages of The Kingdom of 
God’s Lovers, he hurried to the spot. 


How much might be told [says Gérard] of his strong, manly face, all 
lit up with joy, of his speech so meek and affectionate, of the spirituality 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xxviii. 2 Jbid., cap. xxii. 


110 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


emanating from his entire person, and of his deeply religious demeanour, 
even in the way he wore his garments, . . . Though we were eager that he 
should speak of himself, he would never do so, but contented himself with 
expounding certain lessons from the holy Epistles. . .. Two or three of us 
told him that we had assiduously studied and copied out his books; he 
proved himself as devoid of vainglory as though he had never written 
them. The three days he spent with us seemed all too short. . . . Con- 
sequently we strongly urged him to prolong his stay somewhat. “My 
dear brethren,” he replied, “‘above all else we must be obedient. I have 
told my superior, my provost, that I expected to be back on a certain 
day, whereupon he permitted me to absent myself for that definite length 
of time. This is why I must leave in good time, to fulfil my vow of 
obedience.’’ 1 


Such virtue, however, exasperated Satan, ever bent upon 
preventing the salvation of men. The more successfully the 
prior’s devoted life defeated his ingenious artifices, the more 
determined did Satan become to persecute the holy man. 
He tried to affright him by appearing, leaping along the 
paths, under the form of a hideous toad or some other 
repulsive creature. But the inventive enemy was unsuccess- 
ful, for all his evil devices. When the prior was asked if 
these apparitions did not terrify him, he simply answered: 
No. He only felt humiliated by the fact that the diabolical 
perverter of mankind was thus able to come so near to him. 
However, he had a presentiment of these attacks, and took 
care to arm himself against him with spiritual weapons. As 
he was one night sharing the cell of the provost, the latter 
heard him exclaim: Pater, ecce venit, ecce venit? 

Indeed, the holy prior accused himself of affording the 
devil the opportunity of tormenting him. Pomerius relates 
one of these incidents, the fault for which Ruysbroeck, with 
scrupulous conscientiousness, attributed to himself. 

It was the custom, in a convent, to read out the anni- 
versaries of the deceased in the chapter-house, each one 
separately, according to the order in which they were enrolled 
in the obituary (divisim). Certain monks asked permission 
of the prior to read these services all at one time (conjunc- 
tim). Absorbed in meditation, Ruysbroeck imprudently 


1 Bijdragen ..., pp. 12, 13, 14. ? Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xxiv. 


GROENENDAEL III 


acceded to their request. This resulted in the demons visiting 
him in most terrible fashion.! 


May this be a lesson to you, monks of the present time [concludes 
Pomerius]; it is so easy for you to fall into such breaches and infractions. 
And if sometimes Satan does hot chastise you immediately here below, 
rejoice not on that account; rather dread the stern Judge of all men 
who punishes all the more severely in proportion to the patience he 
has exercised. 


All the same, God did not abandon his child; amid all 
his sorrows and trials, he favoured him with ineffable visions. 
Often did Jesus Christ come to visit him, bestowing signal 
favours on his faithful servant. One day he appeared visibly 
before him, surrounded by his mother Mary and all the saints 
in the heavenly places. The Lord graciously addressed the 
humble monk: Tu es filius meus dilectus, in quo mihi bene 
placui. After embracing him (et amplexans eum in brachits), 
he said to his Mother and to the saints: ecce puer meus electus.” 

Thus did the devout prior hold with his Lord mysterious 
discourse which it is not permitted to man to divulge, 
but which is manifest in his books. And the bon cuisinier, 
Jan d’Afflighem, asserts that he saw him once raised to such 
heights of glory that it was not possible for any of his 
contemporaries to transcend him. 

Let us not lay rude hands upon these precious garlands 
that gather round the biographies of the saints. It may be 
that psychologists, whose task it is to study exclusively the 
mechanism of the spiritual life, are right in regarding appari- 
tions, auditory phenomena, etc. as hypnoid states arising 
from clearly determined causes. Scientifically, supernatural 
words and visions might be no more than psycho-sensorial 
hallucinations called forth by “the spontaneous development 
in consciousness of emotions usually connected with the 
presence of a being or an object.” * Of subconscious origin, 
these hallucinations—in the scientific, the non-popular and 
pejorative meaning of the word—“‘differ from hallucinations 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xxv. 

2 [bid., cap. xxvi. 

3B, Leroy, Le Langage, pp. 199 ss; H. Delacroix, Etudes d'histoire et de 
psychologie du mysticisme, App. I. p. 440. 


112 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


of hysterical origin by the fact that they remain con- 
cordant with the events of real life.”! But the explanation 
of the mechanism in no way changes the intrinsic value of 
the revelation. This has been well understood and aptly 
expressed by H. Delacroix when he demonstrates that visions 
are an exteriorisation of the mystic’s own distinctive plans 
and designs: “Thus does his soul express itself; visions are 
religious poetry, a stage towards liberation, towards emptiness 
of mind.’’? In every affective state there is an element which 
eludes scientific investigation. If this latter could apprehend 
the mystery in which we are everywhere enveloped, what 
would remain of the great exaltations of the soul, of prayer, 
of patriotism, of the sacred pangs that cloud with anguish 
the brows of the noblest of mankind? Do we not read that 

Love is a specific emotive entity, consisting of a more or less permanent 
variation of the affective and mental state of a subject, on the occasion 
of the realisation—by the fortuitous exercise of a specialised mental 
process—of an exclusive and conscious systematisation of his sexual 
instinct.8 

Besides, the mystics do not presume on the special 
favours granted to them, though fully convinced of their 
reality, any more than Jesus attributed a decisive influence 
to his miracles or gave them an apologetic value superior 
to his words and his holy life.f These phenomena speak to 
us of the supremacy of the spiritual life, of an unknown 
force working within the heart of the believer, they tell of 
possible union with the infinite, of security and joy. 

Ruysbroeck certainly experienced these feelings. Their 
secret is to be found in the holiness of his life as much as 
—perhaps more than—in his organism sadly weakened by 
fasting. Mysticism thus understood, by controlling and 
directing spiritual forces, rejects religious formalism, the 
real malady of the spirit. It is a victory, not a defeat. And 
it remains true, with entire and absolute conviction, in spite 


1 De Montmorand, op. cit., p. 135. 

? La Religion et la Foi, p. 272. 

3 G. Danville, La Psychologie de l'Amour (Paris, 1919), p. 179. 

‘Sainte Thérèse, Château, 6 dem., chap. ix.; Jean de la Croix, Montée, 
lib. II. chaps. viii., xvi.; Saint Ignace. Acta sanct., ad 31 Julii, Prelimin., number 614. 


GROENENDAEL 113 


of all mechanistic explanations, that when he raised the cup 
at the mystic Supper instituted by Jesus, the old prior 
felt his heart visited and.comforted. He felt reassured, 
strengthened in the darkness of his night. And his deep piety 
was able to project along his path the mysterious silhouette 
of that divine Companion who, on the eve of his departure, had 
promised to leave orphans or comfortless no one of his own. 


IV 


The sweets of contemplation, however, did not wholly 
occupy the mind of Ruysbroeck. No sooner was he settled 
at Groenendael than he took up his pen once more, eager 
to impart to others somewhat of the spiritual wealth that 
filled his own soul. 

Pomerius relates that the prior wrote only when he felt 
illumined by divine grace. Then he buried himself in the 
shadows of the peaceful forest. 

It is pleasant to follow our mystic into the heart of some 
green valley, pulsating with the whirr of thousands of beaten 
elytra. Emerson’s son tells us that his father never had 
more than one method of working. Every morning he went 
out into the woods to listen. There he would stay for an 
hour or two, to store up all he had to receive that day. Then 
he would return home, and transfer to his scrap-book what 
had been given to him. It was so also with Ruysbroeck. 
Like a silver mirror exposed to the sun’s rays, so did he offer 
his soul to the illumination of inspiration. He listened to 
the voice within himself, and things around taught him the 
same lesson. To him everything was a parable, the trans- 
parent symbol of eternal truth. A saxifrage in the anfrac- 
tuosity of a rock, a tiny insect climbing on to his coarse 
garment, the golden stamens grouped, like trembling lovers, 
around the pistil that awaits the moment to open, the 
mysterious phenomenon of the honeycomb and the great 
drops of honey falling to the ground with dull thud, the whole 


1 Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xiv. 


1144 RUYSBROECK THE ADMPR ABI 


marvellous and thrilling fairyland of nature appeared before 
him as a divine Scripture whose meaning was deciphered by 
his own heart. Such deep communion with nature has im- 
parted to every page he wrote a healthy aroma as of 
luxuriant undergrowth and ripe strawberries. This sylvan 
influence cannot be neglected if we would estimate rightly 
the interior life of Ruysbroeck. Far from being the result 
of the ramblings of a self-absorbed mind, his books are 
the spontaneous outburst of a heart lost in wonder and 
poetry and admiration; this it is that, adown the changing 
ages, gives them permanent charm. 

Let us then listen to what Pomerius tells us of his master, 
for penetrating truth can be discerned beneath the naive 
statements of the chronicler. Let us consider Ruysbroeck, 
seated on some mossy trunk, and engraving per clavo on a 
waxen tablet what the Spirit dictated. When evening came, 
he returned with the tablet to the monastery, and subse- 
quently developed these brief annotations. Frequently he 
would spend whole weeks without writing out his notes, 
then, tortured by inspiration, he would resume the inter- 
rupted work, “and that with such precision, such a blend 
of phrase and idea, that the piecemeal work seemed homo- 
geneous, slowly elaborated in the silence of the cell.” 1 

Such appreciation by Pomerius is exaggeratedly lauda- 
tory. Gaps in composition are indeed the most pronounced 
faults found in most of Ruysbroeck’s treatises. The sudden 
outbursts of inspiration should themselves be subjected to 
the dictates of reason and confined within a very solid mould. 
Manifestly such discipline was lacking in our mystic. 

Later on, when burdened with years, Ruysbroeck in his 
walks took with him a friar whose duty it was to write under 
his dictation. The old prior is seated beneath overhanging 
foliage. With his right hand he uses a stylus to engrave, 
on the tablet lying on his knees, what the Spirit dictates. 
Opposite him, seated at a desk, is a youthful dark-haired 
monk. Following with his finger the text of a waxen tablet, 


+ Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xiv. 


GROENENDAEL 115 


he transcribes on to a sheet of parchment what the old 
man has just traced. 

One day, continues Pomerius, Ruysbroeck, plunged in 
meditation, forgot the hour for his return. After vainly 
searching the monastery, the friars began to explore the 
forest in the dark. One of the monks suddenly noticed a 
lime-tree enveloped in mysterious light. Making his way 
towards it, he there found the mystic im magno fervore 
divinae dulcedinis sub eadem arbore sedentem The miraculous 
tree became to the monks an object of great veneration. 
Sanderus sang in verse the glory of the #14 Rusbrochu? 
Even about the year 1500 the religious of Groenendael were 
well acquainted with it. At that period the prior, Jacques 
Dynter, had it replaced by another. But when religious strife 
and war drove the monks from their home (about 1577) the 
lime-tree began to wither, and did not bloom again until 
the pious cenobites returned in 1606. In November 1622 the 
Infanta Isabella caused to be erected beneath its branches 
a small chapel, with the following inscription: 

AETERNO DEO—ET—B. MARIAE VIRGINI —LAVRE- 
TANAE — ELISABETHA IÎNFANS PosVIT.5 

The precious tree seems to have disappeared in the 
eighteenth century. A Belgian archæologist, however, M. 
René Stevens, forming his conjectures from an engraving 
of Lucas Vosterman junior, which appeared in the Choro- 
graphia sacra Brabantiae of Sanderus, has had the good 
fortune to find the site of the old chapel of the Infanta on 
a spot where there happen to be a number of lime-trees. As 
the lime is not a forest species indigenous to Soignes, and is 
met with nowhere else in the forest, we may conclude that 
these are offshoots of the famous tree.* 


1 Pomerius, lib. I. cap. xv. 
2 Chorographia sacra Brabantiae, t. Il. p. 29. 
Votum ad Tiliam Rusbrochii, 
. . Posteritas audi: Tilia est, quae nescia falli, 
Ex jama, judicia relligionts erit ..., etc. 
3 Wauters, op. cit., t. III. p. 536. 
‘Annales de la Société a’ archéologie de Bruxelles, t. XXIV. (1910), pp. 27-34. 


116 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


In this atmosphere of piety and poetry were written The 
Seven Cloisters, The Mirror and The Seven Degrees. 

The book of The Seven Clotsters + is a treatise on spiritual 
guidance, addressed to a Clarisse of Brussels, Marguerite 


de Meerbeke: 


Lieve suster, boven alle dinc 
St God ghemeint en ghemint. 


After deploring the perversion of the rule, Ruysbroeck 
deals with the order of the daily occupations of a good nun. 


The rule, alas! is now observed in accordance with the glosses, not with 
the text. Poverty has become changed into as much opulence, magnificence 
and comfort as possible. Poverty is indeed extolled in words, but deeds 
are not in conformity. The spirit of penance and toil has quite languished, 
for the brothers imagine themselves weak, they desire soothing influences 
and easy living. Doctrine becomes subtilty, idle questionings and novel 
discoveries, wherein the honour of God and food for the soul are entirely 
—or almost—absent.? 


To keep herself pure, a nun has to create for Rie a 
whole series of cloisters which separate her from the world. 
Hence the title of the treatise.2 The work includes a large 
number of pages deserving of mention: for instance, chap- 
ter v., on the nursing of the sick, and chapter xxi., on the 
evening readings. Ruysbroeck advises the penitent to read 
three books: the first, which is old, defaced, stained and 
written in black ink, representing our life of sin; the second, 
of very white parchment, containing, written in blood, the 
most innocent life of our Lord Jesus Christ; and finally the 
third, which is blue and green, with all the characters of 
fine gold, and representing heavenly life throughout eternity. 


The Mirror of Eternal Salvation is also a course of 
spiritual instruction imparted to a pious soul, perhaps to 
the Clarisse nun just mentioned.t The Brussels MS. Nos. 
9320-4, because of its contents, regards it as an eprstola 
de sacrosancto sacramento altaris. In effect, a large portion 


1 David, t. IV. pp. 63-121: Dat boec van Seven Sloten; Surius, pp. 265-82: 
De VII Custodiis opusculum longe piissimum. 

* Chapter i. 

3 En hier omme hebbic ghemerct in Sint Claren, die eene beghine was van uwer 
oydinen, dat si besloten was in VIT Sloten. 

4And yet the nun to whom Ruysbroeck here addresses himself seems to 
have just begun her spiritual life: mer sidi noch novicia (chapter i.). 


GROENENDAEL 117 


of the treatise is devoted to the right attitude and frame of 
mind to be adopted when approaching the Sacrament. But 
more than all else the book is an exposition of mystic 
doctrine. In it Ruysbroeck sums up all his other reflections, 
dropping details and accessories and retaining essentials. 
Consequently Van Mierlo does not hesitate to regard The 
Mirror as the author’s masterpiece. All the same, this book 
is far below The Spiritual Marriage in architectural con- 
struction, and Ruysbroeck is well aware of this, for he says: 
En al en bin ic in die materie niet ordelic voertghegaen, whilst 
acknowledging that this lack of order is deliberate: “I knew 
it and did it purposely, whilst waiting for an opportunity 
to complete what I have omitted.” ? 


The Seven Degrees of the Ladder of Love*® seems also to 
have been intended for cloistered religious. Certain passages 
of chapter xii., on the heavenly melodies, may call to mind 
the cantersse Marguerite de Meerbeke; but we have no more 
precise information. Ruysbroeck borrows the image from the 
mystic ladder familiar in ascetic literature, from the rule of 
Saint Benoit, and popularised in the well-known Scala of 
Jean Climaque. Ruysbroeck compares life to a staircase of 
seven steps, equivalent to the progressive stages which lead 
to perfection, 1.e. the perfectly contemplative life (een ghe- 
warich scouwende leven) and a state of not-knowing (grondeloes 
niet weten) which it is difficult to picture to oneself through- 
out the entangled explanations of our mystic.* In the various 
mystic exercises of the first five degrees Ruysbroeck intro- 
duces the celestial hierarchies. But here he abandoned 
tradition to such an extent that Gérard de Groote hesi- 
tated to translate the treatise: Librum de gradibus teutont- 
cum non optarem publicari nist quaedam in eo, praecipue 
de hierarchtus angelorum, essent reformata ; quae aliqualiter 
ad verba Patrum in latino cum timore reformaur.5 

1 Van Mierlo, Dietsche Warande . . . (1910), p. 553. * Chapter xxi. 
* David, t. IV. pp. 1-60: Van VII. Trappen in den graet der gheesteikey minnen ; 
Surius, pp. 282-302: De Septem gradibus amoris libellus optimus. 


4 Chapter xiv. * Nolte, Theol. Quartalschrift (1870), p. 284. 
L 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE FOREST MONKS 


ANYONE at the present day walking along by the seven 
beautiful lakes lying hidden in the heart of the Vallée Verte, 
—the surface of the water reflecting the leafy tops of the 
beech-trees—would seek in vain for the site of the ancient 
monastery of the canons regular of Saint Augustine. Plunder 
and fire have left no trace of buildings which, for over three 
centuries, witnessed the meditations of the forest monks. 
Nothing could be so desolate as this framework of trees 
and springs which marks the victorious reconquest that 
nature has made of the fleeting works of man. The heavy 
silence of the forest has fallen upon the priestly voices once 
heard here chanting psalms in the dawn’s soft splendour, 
and again when, in the quiet of evening, the plaints of 
wood-pigeons and the pulsating throb of innumerable lives 
were hushed. Etiam periere ruinae / 

It is just possible that the pilgrim, as he mounts the 
gentle slopes which rise from the water’s edge towards the 
south-east crest of the vale, may stumble upon a few traces 
of stone, wholly hidden away beneath grass and fern. These 
are fragments of the first enceinte, ruins of the old red-brick 
church. Farther on is a vault, fallen into decay. All the 
same, these débris enable the historian, with the help of old 
engravings, to fix the site of the famous monastery. 

It stood on the slope which now abuts on to the high-road 
from Mont-Saint-Jean to Malines, and once formed a sort 
of isosceles triangle, bordered on the north-west by the 
Vivier which follows the pond of the Patte d’Oie and by the 
pond of Charles-Quint, south-east by the road and south by 


118 


THE FOREST MONKS 119 


the little path of the Procession which crosses a grove of 
resiniferous trees. Standing there, half-way between the Croix- 
Pay and the Sentier du Curé, it is possible, through a gap in 
the forest, to see the whole of the ancient domain with the 
delightful pond of Charles-Quint in the distant background. 

It was in such glorious surroundings that the anchorites 
erected buildings indispensable to life in common. A first view 
of Groenendael shows that no attention was paid to luxury, to 
external adornment. In the beginning it was simply a question 
of sheltering a few poor monks, fifteen at most; and so the 
most pressing needs were considered first. Sharing out the 
various duties of carpenter and mason, the monks were not 
long in surrounding their domain with a wood palisade which 
protected them from deer and wild boar, as well as from the 
noisy inroads of the huntsmen. Of wood also were built a 
humble chapel (oratortum) and the monastery properly so 
called. No doubt this latter, after the fashion of the times, 
comprised several buildings: the dwelling of the monks, 
with rooms reserved for a sick-ward, and for a library 
(scriptorium); the vestiarum, intended for the arrangement 
and the repair of clothes; the cellarium, which contained 
the provisions, and where the fruit of the orchard was stored 
for winter. When Gérard de Groote came to visit the convent, 
about 1377, the original aspect had scarcely changed at all. 


When they arrived at Groenendael [says Thomas à Kempis], Gérard 
and his companions saw no great luxurious building whatsoever: every- 
where marks of that simplicity and humility which were also the char- 
acteristics of our heavenly King when he came down to earth. 


The sight of this wholly evangelical simplicity made a 
deep impression on travellers, if we may judge from the letter 
which Gerard de Groote addressed to Ruysbroeck on his 
return to Holland: “ardeo adhuc et suspiro vestram prae- 
sentiam et de spiritu vestro renovari et inspirari et mihi 
impertiri.” À 

1 Vita Ger. Magn., cap. x. 


120 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


I 


Though at the present time we cannot exactly reconstitute 
the site of the different buildings, we are nevertheless able, 
thanks to the documents, to obtain a very precise idea of the 
life of the monks, and of the spirit which prevailed through- 
out the association. The chief documents are: the Chronicle 
of the convent of Mont-Sainte-Agnés and that of Thomas 
a Kempis, the writings of Ruysbroeck and of some of his 
companions, the letters of Gérard de Groote and the already- 
mentioned epistle of Pierre de Herenthals, and lastly the 
rule of Saint Augustine, to which the new monks were subject. 

The monastery life being strictly controlled by the 
Augustinian prescriptions, it is worth while studying this 
discipline somewhat, and examining the various articles, 
if we are to obtain a consistent picture of monastic life at 
Groenendael as a whole. 

Scholars are not unanimous as to the origin of the rule 
of Saint Augustine. It is generally thought that the famous 
rule was drawn up from a letter addressed in 423 by the 
bishop of Hippo to nuns who had rebelled against their 
mother-superior.2 It might equally well have been taken 
from the two Sermones de moribus clericorum which discuss 
the same ideas. Nevertheless, the fact that disciplinary 
prescriptions are, as it were, codified in the letter ad Moniales 
is rather favourable to the first hypothesis. It is the one 
we adopt. 

Saint Augustine had been the one who introduced mon- 
astic life into Roman Africa. He had transformed his patri- 
monial house of Tagaste into a monastery, where he could 
meditate in the company of Alypius, Evodius and other 
friends. At Hippo he had founded a community of women, 
the control of which he had entrusted to his sister. When she 
died, the sisters rose in revolt against Felicitas, the new 
superior, and against Rusticus, the almoner. It was on this 
occasion that Augustine sent them the epistle in question, 


1 Epist. CCXI., ad Moniales (Migne, Pair. lat., t. XX XIII. col. 960-5). 


DHE FOREST MONES I21 


exhorting them to peace and concord. The tone of the letter 
is authoritative, almost stern. The great bishop enjoins upon 
the rebels to conform to a series of prescriptions: haec sunt 
quae ut observetis praecipimus 1n monasterio constitutae. In 
his conclusion he specifies that the letter must be read aloud 
each week, and hints at punishment in cases of delinquency 
or violation. 

Augustine deals minutely with the whole of convent life. 
One feels that, for him, there are no such things as trifling 
details: the material and the spiritual are closely inter- 
blended. And it is just this attention to detail, this master’s 
eye everywhere visible, and a profound acquaintance with 
the human heart which appears from beginning to end of 
the document, that gave the Augustinian rule so great an 
influence, and constituted it a model for innumerable religious 
societies. 

Discipline, as conceived by Saint Augustine, is based 
on the principles of Oriental cenobitism: vow of poverty, 
vow of obedience, community of possessions, and life in 
common. 

At the outset, Augustine insists on the necessity of 
perfect union amongst all the sisters. The recruiting of nuns 
brought to the convent women of different social classes: 
it is desirable that distinctions be absolutely abolished. To 
pride oneself on the wealth brought to the community when 
one enters, or, if one has been disinherited, to rejoice at the 
prospect of being henceforth sheltered from a precarious 
existence: these are faults of like gravity. The superior should 
distribute food and raiment to each sister, not equally, but 
according to the different needs. 

Prayers must be said at the hours appointed, and definite 
spiritual exercises strictly carried out. At table, attention 
must be paid to the reading, and, apart from the hours 
devoted to work or prayer, some book must be read and 
studied that has been borrowed from the common library. 

Without going to the extreme of a debilitating asceticism, 
great spiritual benefit may be obtained from fasting and 


122 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


from abstinence in eating and drinking: to tame the flesh is 
to liberate the spirit. 

Purity and decency should be evident in deportment, 
in the manner of arranging the hair, and in dress generally. 
The nuns may go out, but they should always be three in 
number. When walking, “if their eyes fall on any one, they 
ought to be withdrawn immediately.” 

An entire paragraph is devoted to wardrobe matters: 
as far as possible, clothes should not become the property 
of those who wear them. They shall be deposited in the same 
place always, under the guardianship of a sister specially 
appointed for the purpose. The sisters shall take care of the 
garments and shake them regularly, so that they may not 
become moth-eaten. The clothes shall be washed, though 
without going to the extreme of too refined a cleanliness: a 
thing which would entail spiritual defilement. 

As regards health, it is bad to make too frequent use of 
baths. Sisters in good health shall be authorised to take a 
bath semel in mense. One must betake oneself to the bath 
accompanied by two other nuns, appointed by the superior. 

Finally, the relations between the sisters shall be ever 
inspired by a spirit of gentleness: they shall regard mutual 
forgiveness as a duty. All must show respect and obedience 
to the superior. 

Such are the main prescriptions of Epistle CCXI. So mani- 
festly did it respond to the needs of convent life that, after 
the death of Saint Augustine, it became a veritable code 
which, with certain modifications and adaptations, governed 
convents and monasteries alike. From the year 426 onwards, 
the monks of Hadrumetum gave it the authority of law. With 
certain modifications, we find it in the Regula ad servos Det 
which Saint Benedict published in his Codex regularum. 

It was also one of the sources from which Saint Benedict 
drew inspiration in working out the Benedictine rule, and, 
about the same period, Saint Césaire of Arles, one of the great 
regulators of the Church, made use of it in his labours on 
practical theology. 


THE FOREST MONKS 123 


But it was mainly from the eleventh century that the 
Augustinian prescriptions were finally set up as convent 
regulations. In 1067 Gervais, archbishop of Reims, in a 
charter given for the re-establishment of the abbey Saint- 
Denys of Reims, stipulated that the canons should conform 
to the rule of Saint Augustine: canonicos 1bidem ad honorem 
et laudem Det constitut Beatt Augustini regulam ordinemque 
profitentes. From confusion of their rule with the canonical 
tule of Saint Chrodegang of Metz, arose the institution of 
canons regular (canonici regulares). The canonical rule, set 
up as a law by order of Louis le Pieux in 816, had indeed 
been abandoned in the eleventh century. Canons, titularies 
of seigniorial fiefs, lived in open opposition to all ecclesiastical 
rule. Such a state of things called for reform, and this was 
chiefly brought about by Gregory VII., Guillaume de 
Champeaux, the founder of the School of Saint-Victor, 
and Saint Norbert. Innocent II., in the council of Latran 
in 1139, ordered that all canons should submit to the 
Augustinian rule. 

This rule, however, did not follow a single type, as did 
the other great rules. According to circumstances, it admitted 
of more or less considerable alleviations. At Saint-Victor, 
for instance, it was almost as strict as the Benedictine rule: 
meat was forbidden except for the sick. It was the same in 
the Ordre des Prémontrés, founded by Saint Norbert in 
1120, where the religious inflicted veritable macerations 
upon themselves. They had to sleep on the hard ground, 
completely dressed (caligis calceati); fasting was obligatory 
during six months of the year, from the festival of the Sainte- 
Croix (14th September) until Easter. During this period the 
sole meal of the religious consisted of two stews or pulmenta. 
Elsewhere, on the other hand, the canons regular could sleep 
on mattresses, and remove their working clothes for the 
night. These clothes were strong and warm, including shirt 
and drawers, as well as pelisse. After matins the religious 
could return to bed, recreationis causa. They devoted the 
hours of daylight to intellectual tasks or to the practice of 


124 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


their ministry in the vicinity of the monastery (opus Dez); 
but they were forced to devote a few hours per day to 
manual toil. 


IT 


This information gives us some idea of the life of the new 
canons at Groenendael. Besides, Ruysbroeck in The Seven 
Cloisters offers us a striking picture of convent life, a reflection 
of what took place in the heart of the Vallée Verte. 

First, material life. The resources of the monastery were 
drawn from regular revenues, such as the money obtained 
from the sale of chopped wood, and extraordinary receipts 
from bequests or legacies. At first these bequests were few, 
though this was compensated by contributions from the 
novices. It is more than likely that Franco de Coudenberg, 
a wealthy heir, did not give up all his goods to the poor when 
he left Brussels, but reserved a portion for the early needs 
of the association. The dukes of Brabant also, in accordance 
with custom, certainly allowed the recluses to cut down forest 
trees and sell them. But it was mainly legacies and contri- 
butions that enriched the monastery. Traces of these resources 
are found throughout the Vécrologe of Groenendael. The names 
of the brothers are almost invariably followed by such 
mentions as these: habemus ab co et per eum circiter C florenos 
perpetuos ; habemus ab eo VIT libros Parisienses, etc. 

The dietary of the monks was almost wholly supplied 
by the produce of garden and orchard. All the monachal 
rules stipulate that monks must live on the produce of their 
domain. Old engravings of the convent show us monastery 
buildings separated by rich orchards, nursery and kitchen 
gardens parcelled into squares. It is possible that the monks, 
like their neighbours the Benedictine nuns of Forest, went 
in for the cultivation of the grape, which proved very success- 
ful on the sunlit slopes of the glades. They certainly had a 
few cows, and flocks of sheep or of goats. In addition, the 
neighbouring lakes supplied them with fish in abundance. 


THE FOREST MONKS | 125 


Manual work was held in great esteem at Groenendael. 
“There is no happiness possible without work,” Ruysbroeck 
was fond of repeating. He attributed like honour to working 
tools, the mattock, the trowel, the sickle, as to the sacred 
vases, nor did he set himself apart from the common rule. 
We hear of him accompanying the brothers to the kitchen 
garden, handling the hoe or removing manure.? Indeed, the 
monks (patres) themselves chose, from among the various 
manual tasks, those that most especially suited their capacities 
or their tastes. The heavy work fell mainly on the lay 
brothers or the fratres conversi. Employed in menial country 
labour, these latter undertook in the monastery the same 
kind of work to which they were accustomed in ordinary life. 
At a time when the lot of the worker scarcely differed from 
that of the serf, entrance upon religious life meant freedom. 
Bound down to the vows of chastity and obedience, they 
became religious and yet remained workers. This dual con- 
dition was apparent even in externals and in dress: instead 
of reaching down to the feet, their woollen tunic came only 
to the knee; the hood, also, was not so wide. As a rule they 
retained the beard intact: for this reason they are designated 
in old documents as barbati or converst latct. 

These humble artisans supplied the monastery with 
almost the whole of the necessary handicraft, giving the 
association the aspect of a real self-sufficing society. They 
were bakers, woodcutters, oxherds, vinedressers, waggoners, 
blacksmiths, farm-workers, etc. But they enhanced the dignity 
of toil by linking it on to the religious life. Indifferently 
educated for the most part, the fratres converst worshipped 
God in utter simplicity of heart. Their only obligation was 
to know by heart the Pater, the Credo, the Miserere met, 
Deus, and the Benedicite. This poverty of spirit, however, 
far from checking the spontaneous outbursts of the heart, 
favoured that simple piety which is sometimes better 


1The Four Temptations, David, t. IV. p. 280: ende sonder dese werken en 
mochten si niet salich syn. Cf. The Sparkling Stone, chapters ix., xi. 
? Pomerius, lib. II. cap. xx. 


126 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


informed regarding the final mysteries than the wisdom of 
the learned. It seemed to these poor conversi, whom the 
monastery had snatched from the wretched world outside 
and supplied with a haven of peace, that God himself was 
working by their side, walking close to the plough, appearing 
to them with renewed glory in the hazy splendour of the 
dawn when they led out the flocks on to the slopes. It was 
his face, enveloped in sparks, that shone upon them in the 
dark cavernous forge. 

And on their side, the conversi offered up in homage to 
the Master of life the humblest and most painful tasks, which 
they never interrupted, except to recite the hours tolled from 
the monastery bell in the distance. Better than any other 
could the poor lay brother understand the Gospel text re- 
garding the birds of the air: your heavenly Father feedeth 
them. In entering the monastery, was he not escaping the 
brutality of the seignior, the vicissitudes of a precarious 
existence? Was not peace now assured to him? And so we 
can understand those sudden joyous impulses which welled 
up in these simple hearts and sometimes manifested them- 
selves in naive practices and intemperate words, such as 
the documents relate.1 

At Groenendael, the first few years were mainly employed 
in clearing the soil and making fruitful the land which 
the duke of Brabant had ceded to the newly-formed asso- 
ciation. The assarting of forest-land is extremely laborious. 
Not only was it necessary to fell gigantic trees, to clear the 
soil of thorn-bushes, to burn the roots in order to overcome 
their extraordinary vitality, but also, after this clearing 
process had been completed, to revivify the soil exhausted 
by the avidity and greed of age-long forest species. Fre- 
quently the soil had to be removed on their backs. The 
fathers shared with the monks in this laborious task. Nor 
was it the least instructive of spectacles to see these men, 
“éminents par leur vie et leur science,” masters of arts, 
-important bourgeois or opulent canons, freely devote them- 


1 Cf. Pomerius, op. cit., lib. III. cap. xx. 


THE FOREST MONKS B27 


selves to the work of the soil, repair their own raiment or 
grease their own shoes. 

The general control of the work was entrusted to the 
provost (praepositus) appointed by the bishop. This post 
was first held, as we have seen, by the rich patrician Franco 
de Coudenberg, who remained in office until his death in 
1386. It was the provost’s mission to see that the rule was 
applied, and to treat rigorously any violation of it. As 
general manager of the community, he attended to the dis- 
tribution of food and clothes, portioned out daily the various 
manual tasks, heard complaints and petitions to which he 
gave a paternal response, seeing to it that there was a general 
good understanding prevalent. 

Immediately below him came the prior, whose only duty 
it was to assist the provost. Except in the case of Ruys- 
broeck, who had been directly appointed by the bishop of 
Cambrai, the prior was chosen by the provost after con- 
sulting the monks, per viam scrutinit. 

Another monk undertook the financial administration 
of the monastery. This was the cellarius, or the refectorarius, 
who attended to the preparation of the meals, supervised 
the fasts, distributed the portions according to the work 
performed. The converst, who had heavy work outside, had 
the right every morning to a more plenteous repast, the 
mixtum. The sick, too, profited by the surveillance of the 
cellarius, enjoying a modified regimen. The pater cellarius 
also bought in the needed stores, settled the bills, and was 
alone privileged to pay the expenses necessitated to keep 
the monastery in working order. 

Subsequently, in addition to these three dignitaries who 
constituted the original hierarchy, the development of the 
house necessitated other functionaries (officiari1). These were 
the grand hosteler (Aospitularius), whose duty it was to 
welcome travellers or visitors, the father chamberlain (1#- 
frmarius), the grand chantre (cantor), the keeper of the 
wardrobe or the librarian (armorius, librarius), the sacristan 
(custos sacrari1), who kept in order the chapel and the various 


128 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


objects of worship, the door-keeper (portarius), who, having 
to open the door to visitors and to receive the poor, had to 
be chosen from among the monks known for their affability 
and good temper. 


Let us now glance at the interior of the monastery, taking 
for our guide Ruysbroeck, who has left instructions regarding 
the various occupations that fill up the day. 

First of all, the life of a religious should be wholly one of 
humility, poverty and obedience. “The greatest glory and 
the highest nobility in the world is the service of God.” 1 
This service is given in detail in the rule, which must be 
obeyed absolutely, without seeking such modifications as 
were desired by many languid monks. After morning prayer, 
which the monk should say immediately he leaves his bed, 
the day begins with attendance at mass. The provost then 
proceeds to the distribution of tasks: 

Take always the humblest and most despised service, whether in 
kitchen or sick-room. Give order or command to no one who is not 


appointed to this duty, but always willingly do yourself what is in your 
power. If you are ordered to perform the humblest service, thank God for it. 


Amongst the tasks distributed was that of looking after 
the sick-room. On this subject Ruysbroeck has written one 
of his finest pages. He loved and understood the sick. His 
instructions are still deserving of meditation. 


Serve the sick joyfully, with gentleness and humility and without a 
murmur. Should they be impatient and hard to please, reflect that you 
are serving Christ, and show so sweet and loving a countenance that they 
become ashamed of themselves. . . . The poorer they are, and the fewer 
their friends, the more eager should you be to serve them. Do not have 
regard only for the person you serve, but rather see God, for whose sake 
you serve him. Be very careful not to sadden the patients, to cause them 
affliction by your deeds, words or attitude. . . . When patients ask for 
relief, aid must be given them as speedily as possible. But when they ask 
for that which is neither good nor useful to them . . . act as though you 
had not heard or understood. Prepare and serve all their food and drink 
in as cleanly and pleasant a manner as possible, with the object of pleasing 
them... . Make their beds and relieve them as much as you can, according 


1 The Seven Cloisters, chapter i. 2 [bid., chapter v. 


THE FOREST MONKS 129 


to their delicate condition or their greater need. Be so gay and pleasant 
in your converse with them that each patient is anxious to have you by 
his side. And do not forget to say comforting words to them as welli 

Wherever he be placed, in scullery or sick-room, kitchen 
or field, the monk should ever rejoice in his task. He should 
do his work simply and conscientiously, guarding against 
all pretence.? The relations between the religious should 
always be imbued with a spirit of peace and amiability, 
free of anything calculated to cause trouble. 


Should it happen that someone speaks or acts evilly against you, 
forgive him immediately in your heart, even though he neither desire nor 
ask for pardon, and present before him so happy and joyous a countenance 
that he see cause for self-abasement3 

In the refectory, 


guard against eating in excess, even though you should feel great 
hunger, and a great desire to drink or eat. . . . Consider neither your taste, 
pleasure nor convenience, but rather be content with coarse food and with 
what others leave.4 .. . Eat and drink what is given to you. Is it burnt or 
salted too much, or unpleasant to taste? Reflect that our Lord had gall 
and vinegar for meat and drink in his greatest sufferings; he held his peace 
and murmured not. 

In the parloir, the monk should give proof of the utmost 
discretion; he should not be affected in dress, neither too 
careful nor too negligent. He will ask no questions about 
anything touching the outer world, and will constantly keep 
his eyes cast down, avoiding more especially the glances 
of persons of the other sex.f 

The clothing, in religious orders, is of great importance. 
It serves not only to protect from cold, but it should also 
express the spirit of the order. Thus it is entirely symbolic. 
The religious and his garment form but one, hence the 
obligation in certain orders, the Cistercians, for instance, 
to sleep fully dressed. The apparel of the canons regular of 
Saint Augustine consisted of a broad tunic of white linen 
symbolising purity (tunica linea, rochetum, subtile). This 
robe or surplice came down to the heels and had wide sleeves. 
It was shorter for the convers: by reason of their occupation, 


1 The Seven Cloisters, chapter v. * [bid., chapter vii. 
3 Ibid., chapter vii. 4 Jbid., chap. viii. 
5 Ibid., chapter vi. * Ibid., chapter ix. 


130 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and the sleeves were replaced by wide openings. The tunic 
of the converst was called sarracium or camisa. Above the 
robe the canons wore a full cope of black cloth (dirrus or 
cuculla), supplied with a hood of the same colour (caputia), 
symbolising death to the world. During the months of 
summer, from Easter to the middle of September, the monks 
threw over their shoulders an amice (almutium).1 At first 
this was a lamb-fleece cape, subsequently reduced to a simple 
fur, shaped like a mantilla. The lower garments consisted 
of a second white robe (tunica superior), of a rough cloth 
gown, supplied with sleeves, and reaching the waist (tunica 
inferior, interula), and, for those who wished, of drawers 
(femorale). The foot-gear (calceamenta, sotularia) were made 
of thick black leather, and aimed rather at convenience 
than at elegance. 

In the early days, there was a considerable degree of 
fancy, even of frivolity and coquetry, in the vestments of 
the canons. Some adopted red as the colour for the tunic, 
others violet, the result being that Pope Benedict, in 
a bull of 1339, had personally to fix the details of the 
habiliments. 

This caused Ruysbroeck to say: 

I fear that, as a rule, the religious orders are more anxious and eager 
to adorn and dress the body externally than the soul internally. This is 
why I tell you not to concern yourselves at all about the dress you wear. 
However old or new, coarse or common-looking, content yourselves with 
what is given to you. If your body is protected against cold and heat, that 
is sufficient, if you would live in accordance with your rule and remain 
faithful to God. Be careful, then, not to complain, for, when religious 
orders were first instituted, the saints always chose the coarsest and 
commonest cloth, such as they were able to find in the district where 
they lived, and it was always undyed.? 

Under such control the monastery rapidly became, for 
the other religious houses, a model which was all the more 
admirable from the fact that everywhere else the rule had 

1 The etymology of this word is unknown. Jacob Severt (Chronic. histor. 
archiep. Lugd., p. 432) regards it as derived from hautement mise, others refer 
it to amicium ab amicine, the opening of a leathern bottle; and yet others to 


the German hooftmuisen. 
? The Seven Cloisters, chapter xx. 


THE FOREST MONKS 131 


fallen into neglect, and scandalous disorder and licentious- 
ness discredited monastic life in the minds of the people. 
“Above all, remain one with the religious of Groenendael,” 
writes Gerard de Groote to a friend living near Brussels. 
Pierre de Herenthals, who had visited the convent of Groe- 
nendael during Ruysbroeck’s latter years, communicates as 
follows his impressions to Jan de Hollande, a canon regular: 
I have lived for some time in your house, admiring the many and 
wonderful results of the grace of God. . .. I have seen the zeal and solicitude 
of the old for the instruction and sanctification of the novices, the respect 
of the latter for the counsels of the former, the compassion shown to the 
sick, the kind reception accorded to strangers. How promptly and devoutly 
all anticipated one another in serving God! How fervently and obediently 
they united to fulfil the duties of their obligations! One in peace and 
concord, and strengthened by this union, they dreaded neither the ruses 
nor the attacks of their spiritual enemies. . Heaven grant that the 


never abandon the rule of life they have embraced and faithfully kept 
up to the present time. .. 1 


III 


Still, the religious of Groenendael were not content merely 
to practise the highest Christian virtues and to blend love 
of work with contemplation, 1m primordial: fervore. Some of 
them, in imitation of their prior, devoted themselves to the 
literature of mysticism and acquired a fame to which the 
documents render testimony. 

We will first mention Guillaume Jordaens, Ruysbroeck’s 
translator, vir valde ingeniosus et litteratus, as Jan Scoon- 
hoven testifies. He was a native of Brussels, where he acquired 
all his literary and theological degrees, as we learn from the 
list of professed friars of Groenendael, where he is called 
magister, clericus sollemnis. He assumed the habit of canon 
regular at Groenendael in 1352. He died in 1372, after having 
written several works, in addition to the above-mentioned 
translations. In the Nécrologe of Groenendael we read, ad diem 
IX kl. Decembris : anno Domini MCCCLX XII obtit frater 
Wilhelmus ‘Jordan, presbyter... . Scripsit enim plura, prae- 


1 MS. No. 23, Musée archéol. de Namur, fol. 234 ss.; Auger, Étude . . ., p. 303. 


1332 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


cipue unum integrum antiphonarium in duobus voluminibus. 
He also composed the funeral eulogium on a monk who died 
in 1358, Jan de Cureghem: Planctus super obitu fratris 
‘Fohannis de Speculo, alias de Cureghem. Regarding this 
funeral eulogium, the Nécrologe says: hujus vitam virtutibus 
plenam frater W. ‘fordant curioso style neque minus veract 
compendioseque depinxit. 

Jean Stevens, born at Louvain in the early years of the 
century, composed a number of pious addresses which he > 
put in writing under the name of Lxhortationes, and a 
small treatise on mysticism, Ornamentum Virginum, also 
in manuscript. 

In 1377 there came to the monastery a young priest, 
without any literary qualification (magister in artibus), who, 
through his writings, was destined to add largely to the 
renown of the establishment. His name was Joannes Theo- 
derici de Schoonhovia. He died at Groenendael in 1431, 
anno suae professionis LIII°. The Nécrologe which mentions 
his death, ad XI Kal. Feb., relates the following strange 
peculiarity about him: hic tam fervens et sedulus extitit in 
divino officio ut, quamvis multis annis in tantum pateretur 
caninum appetitum quod crebro in cella et 1n choro comedere 
cogeretur, tamen vix unquam a choro vel a sacrificio missae 
abstineret. 

Jan de Scoonhoven is chiefly known for his polemic with 
Gerson, who had accused Ruysbroeck of dabbling in pan- 
theism. His literary work, however, is not confined to this 
epistola de unione animae. The Nécrologe of Groenendael in 
1381 mentions his biography of Ruysbroeck, which was 
early lost, for no further mention is made of it. The monk 
who drew up the funeral notice of Scoonhoven in 1431 does 
not know of it. No trace is found, either, in the large 
Brussels MS. No. 15129 which contains the works of Scoon- 
hoven, or in the list of Mastelinus. This list mentions a 
tractatus de contemptu mundi, and a tractatus de passione 
Domint, alius tractatus de Ecclesiae Sacraments. 

Particularly gifted in the art of oratory, Scoonhoven 


THE FOREST MONKS 133 


composed a large number of addresses (collationes) and 
sermons. In 1413, when Groenendael was again united to 
the chapter of Windesheim, Scoonhoven delivered an im- 
portant sermon in Latin on the text: et fret unum ovile et 
unus pastor. Amongst his other speeches, contemporaries 
praise two sermons in the patois of Brabant, delivered at 
Windesheim, one on the text: venite ascendamus ad montem 
Domini, coemt, laet ons opclimmen, the other on: nos autem 
gloriart oportet, ons behoert te glorieeren. 


But of all the brothers who joined Ruysbroeck, not one 
was more greatly loved or revered than the humble cook of 
the monastery, Jean de Louvain or d’Affighem, surnamed 
bonus cocus by reason of his piety and his amiability. 

A very touching figure was that of this poor lay brother 
who, in imitation of Saint Francis, had indeed espoused the 
lady Poverty. Pomerius, eager to keep alive the glories of 
the monastery, devoted a whole book to him.! 

Already attached to Ruysbroeck’s person in Brussels, 
he had followed his master as a frater conversus to the monas- 
tery of Groenendael, where he made such progress in holiness, 
says Pomerius, that in his age there was no other man so 
humble, so devoid of self-consideration and so evidently 
imbued with divine grace. 

Tall and robust, he looked like a lion. His duty was to 
attend to the material wants of the little congregation, 
though this did not prevent him from outstripping all the 
other brothers as regards fasts, vigils and other macerations 
of the body. He carried out his task with such eagerness for 
perfection, without ever giving way to an impulse of ill- 
temper or fatigue, that the brothers had of one accord called 
him bonus cocus. He also carried on the duties of hospitaller, 
welcoming everyone—sive nobilis sive ignobihs— with a 
smiling geniality as warm as the sun that shone upon the 

1 De origine monast. Viridis Vallis, liber tertius De Vita frat. Johannis de 


Leuwis alias dicti de A ffliginio, boni coqui Viridis vallis, pp. 308 ss. 
M 


134 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Vallée Verte. After conducting the guests into the chapel, 
he prepared for them a kind of meat-bread (offa), and served 
them himself, laeta facie, benigno vultu -alacrique animo, 
being desirous alike to comfort them physically and to 
gladden them spiritually. This holy man, who was capable 
of submitting to the greatest of privations, was yet not 
ignorant of the joys of a well-spread table. And he paid as 
much attention to the management of his kitchen-range as 
to the discipline of his soul. Accordingly his kitchen was 
famous for miles around, and probably more than one 
knocked at the monastery door for motives less noble than 
might have been desired. 

This human note is not out of place in the biography. 
It is pleasant to find Pomerius mentioning, in the same rank 
as his works on mysticism, a cibum sapidissimum. The 
biographer hastens to add that the visitors attached greater 
importance to the spiritual example given them by Jean de 
Louvain than to his culinary preparations. In any case, 
let us be thankful that he did not scorn earthly delights for 
the other monks, and that he remembered that his Master 
gladly sat down at the marriage-table of Cana. Let us be 
even more grateful to him for not forgetting that man does 
not live by bread alone, and, whilst the pilgrim was 
recuperating, for conversing with him about the deep 
realities of the spirit.? 

As for himself, completely weaned from mundane affairs 
and from the concerns of the flesh, the only clothes he would 
wear were of coarse material and practically threadbare. 
Pomerius dwells on this characteristic with complaisant ad- 
miration: even going so far as to break out into lyrical 
exaltation regarding the sordid tumica of the good friar. 
Soiled with grease and black with soot (fuliginosa pinguidine), 
impregnated with every kind of sauce (2mbibita), it was a 

1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. III. cap.: v. . . . plus interdum venire cupiebant ad 
esas Viridis vallis pro spiritual refectione bon coqui, quam pro delectatione 


2 Ibid., cap. v. 
5 [bid., cap. vi. 


THE FOREST MONKS 135 


kind of symbol of his detachment from earth and his scorn 
of it. The religious made great sport of this tunic, for a certain 
sly humour is not inconsistent with holiness. A brother from 
the neighbouring convent of Rouge-Cloitre, on a visit to 
Groenendael, regarded with frank irony the vestes coqui viles 
et sordidas. Then he jestingly asked: Frater ‘fohannes, cujus 
coloris est tunica tua ? And the biographer adds: at tlle, magis 
cultus intertus, extertoris coloris omnino nescius, respodit 
bumiliter se nescire There was the same detachment regard- 
ing food. The good cook, while fond of making savoury 
dishes for his guests, made it a law unto himself never to 
touch them. The fragments that remained were sufficient 
for him, and we are told that he carried the spirit of abnega- 
tion so far as to eat rotten eggs which no one in the refectory 
would touch.’ 

The only sign of vanity he ever showed referred to his 
lameness, but he concealed this infirmity so well that the 
monks did not notice it until his death.’ Always occupied, 
either in his kitchen or at some pious exercise, he scarcely 
ever allowed himself time for rest. He regarded time spent 
in sleep as time wasted; frequently he lay down to sleep 
only after reciting matins.* In imitation of the prior, he had 
acquired the art of working whilst sunk in contemplation; 
his mind was constantly meditating on the Passion; on more 
than one occasion, as he mentally associated himself with 
the stations of the vza dolorosa, he was caught up into a 
state of ecstasy.5 Nevertheless, in order that the mystic 
might not pride himself on his visions, God sent him great 
trials, hellish sufferings, says Pomerius (septem angustiae 
infernales), which, for our edification, the biographer describes 
at considerable length.® 

His submission to the will of God was an example for 
the whole monastery. On one occasion, during a time of 
grave epidemic, the good cook, who was one of the victims, 
asked that he might receive the Communion. But as he was 


1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. III. cap. xv. * Jbid., cap. vi. 
3 Jbid., cap. xix. 4 [bid., cap. vii. 
Pitta... Cap. ix: $ Jbid., caps. xii., xiii., xiv. 


136 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


unable to swallow the whole of the host, he began to exclaim: 
Domine, ad tuum perpetuum honorem! Domine, ad tuum 
perpetuum bonorem ! To the amazed monks who asked for 
an explanation, he replied that, if it had been necessary that 
he were to die in a state of defilement, he accepted this 
damnation, should such be God’s will: Domine, ad honorem 
tuum volo etiam damnari. Such humility met with its reward, 
for the divine voice said to him: nunc cognovi quod me diligis. 
Unde et te, filt carimmime, heredem facto aeternae felicitatis ? 
Straightway the pious monk became convalescent. 

How could joy help finding its abode in so simple a heart ? 
Many a time did it break forth in naive manifestations, 
quite apart from things ceremonial. 

On St. Martin’s day it was the custom to distribute to 
the children walnuts, apples and medlars, which were 
subsequently roasted in a pan placed on a bonfire. On the 
evening of this anniversary, after the cook had just placed 
a well-filled dish on the monks’ table, a feeling of sudden 
joy came over him, and in his delight he began to sing aloud, 


in Flemish: 
Heere sinte Merten, heilich sant, 
Goede platte mispelen wassen in u lant, 
Kyrie eleyson.’ 

The provost wished to impose silence, but, raising his 
eyes, he saw the cook’s face as though illumined with celestial 
radiance. And convinced that the slight breach of discipline 
was a result of divine grace, he did not rebuke the joyful 
cause of the disturbance. 

This naiveté is found throughout the many writings of 
Jean de Louvain. Most of them consist of pious ejaculations, 
very loosely connected. Still, they are not wholly devoid of 
importance. They reveal the influence of Ruysbroeck, and 
are also interesting documents from the philological point 
of view. These works were highly esteemed, and were read 

1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. III. cap. xvi. 

2 [bid., cap. xvii. 


$“Seignior Saint Martin, blessed saint, good medlars grow in thy land. 
Kyrie eleison.” 


THE FOREST MONKS 1197 


far beyond the limits of the convent. We have already 
mentioned the appreciation of Jean Busch who, in his 
Chronicon Windesemense (i. p. 176), associates the bonus 
cocus with Ruysbroeck, and calls both of them magna 
ecclesiae Det luminaria. The Groenendael Nécrologe speaks 
as follows of the literary work of our monk, ad diem g feb- 
ruarit:... perfectionem hujus sancti viri libri sui quos indubie 
Spiritu Det plenus ipsemet scripsit atque dictavit, per diversa 
loca et regiones multiplicati, perspicue dem(onst)rant. And in 
the seventeenth century the historian Miraeus confirms this 
in the following terms: opera ejus ascetica 1bidem Teutonico 
idiomate exstant manuscripta ; digna profecto quae 1n omnes 
linguas transfundantur À 

The bonus cocus died in 1377. Although seriously ill, he 
would not leave his kitchen. There he remained, without 
moving from his chair, for six months; during the latter part 
of the time he was carried about in a conveyance specially 
adapted for the sick (angariatus). In spite of his robust 
appearance he felt that death was near. He received extreme 
unction at the hands of Jan Scoonhoven, and breathed his 
last three days afterwards, on the 5th of February, the 
anniversary of Saint Agatha.? The brothers buried him in 
the garden of Groenendael, and inscribed on his tomb the 
following epitaph: 

Reliquiae fratris Foannis de Leeuwis, vulgo Bont Coct, 
virt a Deo illuminati, et scriptis mysticts clari. 


1 Fasti Belgict et Burgundici (Brussels 1622), p. 717. 
? Pomerius, cap. xxi. 


CHAPTER IX 


LAST YEARS 


I 


MEANWHILE the fame of Ruysbroeck’s virtues soon spread 
far and wide. Learned doctors and nobles, priests and women, 
children and old men, came in crowds to visit the recluse in 
his verdant retreat. He endeavoured to offer counsel to all, 
addressing them, says Pomerius, such fitting words of edi- 
fication that he might have known beforehand of their 
coming. And yet it often happened that this man, capable 
of eliciting sparks from a heart of stone—ut etiam de silice 
ignem excutiens corda lapidia—remained speechless when 
confronted with high and mighty persons, and, quite 
undisturbed by their presence, without a blush of shame, 
stood there and uttered no word, as though he had never 
experienced the gift of the Spirit. If this interior silence 
continued, he would say good night, and go away. 

An echo of these conversations has reached us through 
Pomerius, enabling us to judge of the profound good sense 
of our monk. Here he does not wander away into vague 
speculations; it may be that he is greater before suffering 
souls than before wax-tablets. A single word will strengthen 
and comfort, when this word is inspired by love. One sentence, 
uttered at the right time, can set working within us invisible 
levers which determine the whole of our future life. And the 
reason why the human soul, at certain times, is capable of 
removing burdens before which the most valiant falter, is 
because, deep within it, is God himself. 

To a woman who was bewailing her poverty, her inability 


to help the poor, and her lack of inclination for the spiritual 
138 


LAST YEARS 139 


life, he replied, taking care not to dwell upon all these griev- 
ances in which the poor creature evidently found pleasure: 
“Be assured, beloved daughter, that the best way to serve 
God is to give him thanks for all that befalls us, and to 
submit humbly to his good will.” 

Two Parisian students, with the curiosity of youth 
(curiose), once came to ask him for a phrase which they could 
adopt as a rule throughout life. He simply said to them: 
“vos estis tam sancti sicut vultis: you are as holy as you will 
to be.” These words scandalised the young men, who, greatly 
perturbed, turned away from the old monk and went off 
to tell other friars what the prior had said to them. “He made 
mock of us,” they said again and again. With no little 
difficulty, the monks conducted the Parisians back to the 
old monk, beseeching him to develop his thought. 

Thereupon the prior said: 


Is it not true that you are as holy as you will to be? Surely this is the 
case. The measure of your sanctity depends on the excellence of your will. 
Examine within yourselves the quality of your will, and you will know 
the worth of your sanctity. One is as holy as one ts good. Tantum enim 
quisque sanctus est quantum afficitur bonitatt. 


Wonderful words! They might have been taken, like a 
chaplet of gold, from Saint Paul’s chapter in praise of Love. 
This is the pure Gospel tradition which, in the groves of 
Groenendael, claims along with Saint John and the poverello 
of Assisi its rights over against that false sanctity which 
hardens the heart beneath a pitiless cuirass. It is the gospel 
of the good life, valiant and helpful, in contradistinction 
from academical devotion, so false and barren. And how wise 
and prudent the message! It begins by exalting man and 
setting him on the path, it leads him on until the time when 
he shall understand that, on this arid path which climbs to 
the heights, the will is but a reed which pierces the hand, 
until the time comes for it to yield to love. Salvation is not 
a work of the will, it is a work of love. And this he alone 
understands who, like Ruysbroeck, has long prayed at the 
foot of the Cross, the pathetic memorial of redeeming love. 


140 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


We can well understand that such thoughts had power 
to move and convert souls. Among other conversions, the 
biographer quotes that of a lady of high rank, the baronne 
de Marque, who walked barefoot a distance of two leagues 
to receive instruction from the old saint! Her spiritual 
master carried her so far along the path of devotion that, 
renouncing all her wealth, she became a Clarisse at Cologne. 
Inglebert, her son, contemporary with Pomerius, himself 
entered as canon regular of Saint Augustine at Groenendael. 


IT 


Still, it was mostly from the banks of the Rhine that 
eager pilgrims came to the holy prior. See them journeying 
along the main roads joining the mystic Rhine to opulent 
Flanders, the perpetual scene either of fair or of battle. They 
came, says Pomerius, de Argentina ac Basilea ac alits Rhent. 
Then, when the pilgrims—doctores ac clerici non mediocres— 
had listened to a few words from the inspired saint, they 
would return, keeping as a precious viaticum the message 
to which they had listened. 

At that time the Rhine lands were the centre of an un- 
paralleled spiritual expansion. Monasteries and convents 
increased rapidly in numbers, keeping alive a mystic fervour 
which caused the land from Lake Constance to the Nether- 
lands to be called “the path of the popes”: die Pfaffengasse. 
Thus we need not wonder at the relations soon established 
between Ruysbroeck and the German mystics, the Friends 
of God, for instance. We have already seen that Ruysbroeck 
addressed a copy of The Spiritual Marriage (des bruluft 
buchelin) to the Friends of the Oberland in 1350. Unfortun- 
ately, our information of Ruysbroeck’s relations with the 
German mystics is taken from a justly suspected book of 
Rulman Merswin: De praeveniente gratia et de meritoria 
gratia. Father Denifle has thrown light on the story of the 

+ Pomerius, lib, Il. cap. xix. 


LAST YEARS 141 


conversion of Tauler as found in the Mezsterbuch of Rulman 
Merswin: it is pure fancy.t Such information, therefore, as 
we obtain from Merswin cannot enlighten us to any extent. 

On the other hand, Pomerius seems to tell of a visit by 
Tauler to Ruysbroeck. At all events, this is what tradition, 
after Surius, gives us to understand, for the first biographer 
speaks only of a certain Canclaer, doctor sacrae paginae, 
ordinis praedicatorum magnae, reputationis et excellentiae.? 
Surius, who, as we have seen, drew his information solely from 
Pomerius, does not hesitate to correct Canclaer to Thaulerus, 
and to introduce certain details taken from the legend of 
Rulman Merswin.® 

The question is whether Canclaer is the original writing 
of Pomerius, or whether this name is due to an error in 
copying. De Vreese claims that the true form of Pomerius 
is reproduced in MS. No. 966 of the University of Gand, 
where mention is made of Tauweler. “It is easy to see that 
the names Canclaer and Tanclaer originate in a faulty read- 
ing of the form Yauelaer frequently met with in the Mid- 
Netherland manuscripts along with Yauweleer, Tauweler, 
Tauler.”* This is quite possible; but in that event MS. No. 966 
would be the only representative of the original form. The 
other witnesses, the four known Latin manuscripts of the 
work of Pomerius, the Latin chroniclers who utilise Pomerius, 
all read Canclaer or Tanclaer. Now, in criticism one cannot 
reject the principle difficilior lectio potior. However incom- 


1Taulers Bekehrung hritisch untersucht; Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum 
(1880), xii., xiii. A. Jundt, who had upheld the sincerity of Merswin in his Amis 
de Dieu au xive siècle (1879), subsequently approved of the attitude taken by 
Denifle: Rulman Merswin et l Ami de Dieu de Il’ Oberland : un problème de psycho- 
logie religieuse (1890). The abbé A. Chiquot reconsiders the question in a thesis 
before the Faculté des Lettres de Paris: Jean Tauler and the “‘ Meisters Buoch” 
(1922). He reaches the conclusion that the Ami de Dieu of the Oberland is but 
a creation of Rulman Merswin. 

* Chapter xviii. 

8’ Mastelinus speaks of Conrardus Tanclarius and of Taulerus (Necrologium 
Viridisval., p. 30); Petrus Impens, of a singularis excellentiae et sacrae theologiae 
professor parisiensis emeritus Mr Convardus Tanclaer, ordinis praedicatorum 
(Chronicon Bethleemt, fol. 25 vo). How is it that Grammaye, who certainly had 
this information,-calls the visitor Bernardus Tanclaer (Antiquit. Belgiae, p. 30)? 
A mystery. 

4 De Vreese, Biog. nat., col. 514. 


142 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


prehensible this Canclaer, it must be maintained by reason 
of the very difficulties it raises. 

As Impens and Mastelinus give him the surname of 
Conrardus, he has been regarded as a Conrardus de Saxonia, 
who appears to have lived in Belgium in the second half of 
the fourteenth century. Impens says also that Conrardus 
Tanclaer was a famous professor of Paris. Now, his name is 
found in none of the lists that have been reconstituted. 
Another hypothesis: is Canclaer derived from the Flemish 
word canceleer, cancellarius, chancellor? But then the 
mystery would remain insoluble. 

If then there is Canclaer—as does not seem doubtful— 
let us see if what Pomerius says about him can be applied 
equally to Tauler. Born at Strasbourg in 1290, Tauler was 
early intended for the ecclesiastical life, and, in 1308, entered 
the Order of the Dominicans. This quite agrees with what 
Pomerius says: ordinis praedicatorum. Shortly afterwards 
he betook himself to Paris to study theology in the Collége 
Saint-Jacques, where Meister Eckhart had taught. Manifestly 
Pomerius overstates the fact in calling Canclaer-Tauler 
doctor sacrae paginae, for Tauler took no degree whatsoever. 
All the same, Tauler was early surnamed Doktor or Meister 
der H. Schrift. Besides, Ruysbroeck’s influence over Tauler 
is undeniable, particularly in the sermons subsequent to 1350: 
the book of The Four Temptations is wholly reproduced in 
Sermo I, in prima Dominica quadr. Chapters xlv., lxxv., 
Ixxvil. of The Spiritual Marriage are included in Sermo II, 
in eadem Dominica. Apart from these important borrowings, 
the sermons abound in more modest quotations. But though 
the influence of Ruysbroeck upon Canclaer-Tauler is asserted, 
other details are less likely. In the first place, it is inexact to 
say that it was from reverence to Ruysbroeck that Canclaer- 
Tauler wrote sub materno 1diomate. The use of the vulgar 
tongue in preference to Latin was very general at the time. 
It is also unlikely that Tauler visited Groenendael several 
times. One passage only in the Sermons appears to refer to 
the monastery of Groenendael: ich bin in solichen landen 


LAST YEARS 143 


gewesen do die lute also manltch sind und tunt also ware sterke 
kere und blibent dobi, und bringet das gottes wort do merer 
wurklicher frubte 1n einre tore denne hic in zehen 1oren und 
sach man wunder an diesem wunnechlichen volke und grosse 
genode. If it is proved that the relations between Tauler and 
the Ami de Dieu of Bale are mostly legendary, this passage 
can apply only to the quiet retreat of Ruysbroeck. 

And so, while the name of Canclaer remains mysterious, 
we cannot escape the impression that Tauler really is meant. 
Surius, in correcting Pomerius in this respect, has acted as 
an historian. He is justified by his special knowledge of the 
German mystic, whose books he had edited. Absolute textual 
proof is lacking, but the accuracy of Surius none the less 
supplies a very strong presumption, one that is still further 
strengthened by the literary comparisons to which reference 
has been made. Along with most of the critics, therefore, we 
maintain that a visit of Tauler to Groenendael actually did 
take place As the chronology of Tauler’s life is far from 
being definitely ascertained, it is impossible to assign a 
certain date for this visit. Possibly the sending of copies of 
The Spiritual Marriage to the Amis de Dieu of Strasbourg 
is connected with the visit of Tauler. In that case, this visit 
might be assigned to the year 1350; at any rate it cannot be 
put much after that date, seeing that the famous German 
mystic died in 1360. 


III 


While Ruysbroeck’s influence on Tauler was historically 
far less important than tradition indicates—since Tauler’s 
reputation as a mystic was established long before 1350 2— 
the same cannot be said regarding Gerard de Groote, founder 
of the associations of the Fréres de la Vie Commune. 

1Cf. De Hornstein, Jean Tauler, sa vie, ses écrits, sa doctrine, in Revue Thomiste, 
1019 D. 242; 
? Denifle says categorically: “ Der Einfluss Ruusbroecs, aber, von dem 


der Biograph des leztern, resp. Surius in der Ausgabe der Werke Ruusbroecs 
spricht ist nicht nachzuweisen.’’—Taulers Bekehrung, p. 37. 


“ 


144 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


We are aware that Gerard, moved by the objurgations 
of his friend Henri Calcar, in the autumn of 1374 renounced 
his prebend as canon and bequeathed part of his patrimony 
to the Carthusian friars of Arnhem. Released from material 
cares, he now retired, in semi-claustration, to the house 
where he was born, at Deventer. Shortly afterwards, as 
though reproaching himself for retaining even this, he made 
a gift of his paternal domain “for the use of the poor who 
wish to devote themselves to God.” 

It seems at that time as though Gérard had had serious 
prejudices as regards the monastic life, and these did not 
disappear until several years afterwards. 

It is by no means my intention [he writes in a deed of gift dated 
23rd July, 1379] to found a new order or a new religion, but simply to 
offer hospitality to women seeking a retreat in order that they may worship 


God in humility and penance. These women shall be bound by no vow, 
but shall remain laic and shall call themselves such.t 


All the same, this semi-retreat could not satisfy Gerard. 
He had heard mention of the monastery of Groenendael as 
a model of monastic life. Ruysbroeck’s books had filled him 
with admiration. Accordingly he decided to visit the place, 
to judge with his own eyes, and to ask counsel of the aged 
prior of Groenendael. 

He introduced himself by letter, wherein he gave fervent 
expression of his veneration for Ruysbroeck, cujus scabellum 
pedum tam in hac vita quam in future fiert concupisco. 

Accompanied by Jean Sceele, rector of the Latin schools 
of Zwolle, and by a certain Gerardus Calopifex, who served 
as guide? De Groote set off about the end of 1374, perhaps 
the beginning of 1375. 

Pomerius has left a detailed account of this visit which 
he had from Jean Sceele himself: praemissa autem veraciter 
didict persona tamen interposita, ab ore ejusdem magistri 
Tohannis. 

When the travellers arrived at Groenendael, it chanced 


' Epistola Gerardi ad Joh. Cele. 
* This third person is mentioned only by Thomas à Kempis (Vita Gerardi 
Magni, cap. x.). 


LAST YEARS 145 


that, as they were entering the convent enclosure, the very 
first person they met was the old prior. The latter had never 
seen Maitre Gérard, but, being divinely guided, he greeted 
him by name, and, welcoming him with the utmost defer- 
ence, introduced him into the monastery after predicting that 
some day Maitre Gérard would be his disciple. 

During this first stay, which was only for a few days, 
says Pomerius, Maitre Gérard was very anxious to become 
thoroughly imbued with the prior’s teachings. He therefore 
read attentively all Ruysbroeck’s books, carefully preserved 
in the scriptortum of the monastery. 

All the same, certain expressions did not fail to astonish 
Maitre Gérard. Relying on the prior’s friendship, Gerard 
quite simply remarked to Ruysbroeck: “Father Prior, I 
admire your boldness in writing on subjects so profound; 
you thereby attract to yourself enemies who will not fail 
to decry your doctrine.”—‘‘ Rest assured, Maitre Gérard,” 
answered the prior, “I have never written a word in my 
books that has not been inspired by the Holy Spirit,” or, as 
a variant states, “I have never written anything except in 
the presence of the Holy Trinity.” 

The discussion continued for some time. Doubtless from 
deference to the old man, Gérard did not persist in his 
objections. It was not so with the rector, Jean Sceele, who 
would not yield, and drew upon himself the following retort 
from the old prior, now touched to the quick: “This truth, 
now hidden from you, Maitre Gérard, you will understand 
some day, but your companion, Maitre Jean, will never 
understand it in this life.” 1 

It was probably about this time that Gérard obtained 
from Ruysbroeck the authorisation to translate The Adorn- 
ment of the Spiritual Marriage and The Seven Degrees of the 
Ladder of Love. He took away the books with him, to translate 
them in peace and quiet. He also took away something else 
from his stay in Groenendael: the conviction that the ceno- 
bitic life was the only one suitable for “reforming the interior . 


1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. I]. cap. ix. 


146 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


man, created after the image of God.” The result was that 
he shut himself up in a cell of the Carthusian monastery of 
Monnikhuisen, near Arnhem, where he subjected himself 
to the strictest macerations. Meanwhile there grew in his 
mind the idea of founding a religious association, this time 
subject to a rule. Thinking over this project, the smiling 
peaceful image of Groenendael presented itself before him. 

Being attached by no vow to this Carthusian monastery, 
Gérard returned several times to Groenendael: cum autem 
interpolatis vicibus Magister Gerardus devotum Priorem visitans, 
semel secum in Viridi Valli manere tempus decrevissetA 

Many doctrinal points were still obscure to him; so, at 
least, we are given to understand from Pomerius when he 
says: ut saltem lumen veritatis caliganti tntellectut propalaret2? 
Perhaps, too, his prejudice against monastic life had not 
wholly been destroyed. Of all the questions that crowded 
out one another in the mind of Maitre Gérard, one in parti- 
cular returned again and again: that of the divine wrath. 
This it was which had decided his conversion. Indeed, Henri 
Calcar had strongly represented to him all that the after- 
life holds in store for one: ‘‘Death,” he had said to him, 
“hangs suspended over our heads; we know neither the day 
nor the hour of its coming; of a sudden, we shall have to 
give account of the use we have made of our life.” 3 

And lo! he finds himself confronted with a man dominated 
by the feeling of divine love, one in whom the fear of judg- 
ment seems to play no part. Such tranquillity of soul appeared 
so amazing to Maitre Gérard that he feared for the salvation 
of the old prior. Choosing therefore the most awe-inspiring 
texts of Scripture, he considered it his duty to prove to 
Ruysbroeck, industriosis assertionibus, that he was presum- 
ing on divine grace in showing no fear of hell. The humble 
prior allowed his impetuous friend to continue for some time. 
Then, after a brief silence: 


1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. II. cap. x. Compare what the bonus cocus says: bi 
tiden een maent II. of II J, of somwile een half jaer. 

2 Jbid., lib. II. cap. x. 

3 Thomas à Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, cap. iv. 


LAST YEARS | ih i by, 


Maitre Gérard, [he said] be assured of this; you will never succeed in 
terrifying me. I am equally ready to accept everything the Lord sends me, 
whether in life or in death. There could be nothing more perfect, more 
salutary, or more sweet to the soul. All my desires and longings have but 
this object: that the Lord may ever find me ready to do his holy will.t 


Such complete surrender made the deepest impression 
upon Gerard. He went all over the monastery, which more 
and more seemed to him the type of a perfect community. 
Everywhere he admired the kindly understanding between 
the brothers, the fidelity with which each kept to the place 
assigned to him by the provost, the harmonious and effortless 
union that existed between manual tasks and religious 
exercises; and, anticipating time by hope, he mentally con- 
structed a monastic house after the model of Groenendael. 
On leaving the prior, whom he was never to see again, he 
said to him by way of farewell: “Father, your wisdom and 
your knowledge are greater than they are reputed to be: 
you have compelled fame and renown by means of your 
virtues.” 2 Back in Holland, and ‘‘ruminant comme un animal 
pur” over what had fallen from the lips of the holy prior, 
he hastened to commit to writing an account of these con- 
versations. This was the beginning of the congregation 
of Windesheim. 

Some years later, when lying mortally stricken during 
an epidemic, the image of Groenendael still haunted his 
mind as he was dying. To the brothers pressing around his 
bed he could still say: “Neither the rule of the Carthusians, 
nor that of the Cistercians, but that of the canons regular 
of Saint Augustine.” Thus, before departing this life, the 
thought of the great reformer for the last time found repose 
beneath the peaceful glades of the V alléeVerte, as at the 
gate of heaven itself. 


1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. II. cap. x. 
* Thomas à Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, cap. x. 


148 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


IV 


Meanwhile Ruysbroeck continued writing. Indeed, it 
was during the very last years of his life that he wrote The 
Book of Supreme Truth, which might be called his intellectual 
testament. Our prior had discovered that certain expressions 
in his former books might prove ambiguous, especially those 
dealing with mystical union. As the Carthusians of Hérinnes 
were bewildered by the doctrine of divine union which 
seemed to imply an actual deification of man, Ruysbroeck, 
in spite of his advanced age, betook himself in person to 
Hérinnes. He promised the brothers a new treatise which 
would explain more particularly those passages in The 
Kingdom of God’s Lovers over which readers had stumbled. 

Ruysbroeck mentions this conversation in the first 
chapter of The Book of Supreme Truth: “Indeed,” says he, 
“no one must be scandalised by my writings, rather must 
each one be made better thereby.” He protests that “no 
creature can be—or make itself—so holy that it loses its 
condition as a creature and becomes God.” Such is the central 
thought of the book, wherein mystic union is envisaged under 
a threefold aspect: union by intermediary (chapters iu. 
and iv.); union without intermediary, like the union of 
iron and fire, which, while constituting a single substance, 
nevertheless remain quite separate (chapters v.—xi.); and, 
lastly, union so close that, finding no word adequate to 
express it, Ruysbroeck calls it union without distinction. 
“Here beatitude is so simple and modeless that all essential 
contemplation vanishes, as well as all inclination and dis- 
tinction between creatures” (chapter xu.). To this threefold 
union corresponds a threefold prayer of Christ (chapter xiii.). 
Ruysbroeck ends by humbly confiding in the judgment which 
the Church will deliver upon his writings (chapter xiv.). 

This treatise is manifestly a work that has taken long to 

1 David, t. VI. pp. 241-69: Dat boec der hoechster waerheit; Surius, pp. 540-9: 
Libellus eximius Samuelis titulo, qui alias de alta contemplatione, alias de 


unione dilecti cum dilecto dicitur. In certain manuscripts this book is also called: 
liber apologeticus sive retractationis. 


LAST YEARS 149 


think out and prepare in the silence of the cell. The rigorous 
plan of its composition excludes the idea that Ruysbroeck, 
under the urge of inspiration, dictated it to a secretary. 
Rather is it a well-prepared work, every word of which has 
been carefully weighed before being committed to writing. 

Quite different is the character of The Book of the Twelve 
Beguines. Reading it, we think of what Pomerius tells us re- 
garding the last few years of our prior: Cum jam gravatus 
senio viribus inciperet ingravescere . . . assumpsit sibt in 
socium unum e fratribus monasterii, qui in secum allata tabula 
arcana scriberet eructanda# 

Into these pages Ruysbroeck seems to have thrown 
pell-mell all that he has gathered together throughout his 
long life. An incomparable wealth of language, the flash and 
radiance of innumerable interblended images which make 
the book one of continually dazzling splendour, are found 
side by side with puerilities, long and tedious digressions, 
unexpected platitudes. One feels that it has all been dictated, 
without any thought of cohesion and also without the 
possibility of revision. 

And yet this lengthy work is lacking neither in interest 
nor in importance. Herein can we more particularly judge 
of Ruysbroeck’s theological and scientific attainments. 

It is scarcely possible to indicate a logical plan for the 
book. After a prologue in verse, introducing twelve beguines 
conversing together of the love of Jesus Christ, the author 
speaks of the conditions necessary for benefiting by the 
Eucharist. Then he plunges into what seems to be his real 
subject: contemplation. Shortly afterwards he gives up verse, 
in order, as he says, to express himself clearly: 


Nu moetic vimen laten bliven, 
Sal ic scouwen clare bescriven. 


But the good mystic does not keep his promise very well, 
and it would be impossible to derive a coherent doctrine 
from what he says of the four acts of contemplation: jubi- 


1 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. II. cap. xiv. 
N 


150 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


lation, rapture, contemplation strictly so called, the sublime 
state of love (chapters ix.—xvi.). 

Here he dismisses the beguines who were supposed to be 
conversing on these lofty speculations: 


Hier gaen de XII. Beghinen ute, 


and seems as though he wished to broach a fresh subject: 
hier beghint een onderwys, while continuing to speak of con- 
templation. 

Among the unbelieving men who break the unity of the 
Church, Ruysbroeck points out four kinds of heretics whom 
we have no difficulty in recognising as the Brothers of the 
Free Spirit. Then follows a digression on the threefold nature 
of God, creation, human nature, and the three paths of the 
contemplative life (chapters xvil.—xxix.). 

In a third part Ruysbroeck introduces lengthy remarks 
on the heavenly bodies and their influence upon the destiny 
of men—this subsequently brought upon him the reprobation 
of Bossuet.! The sign of the Scales leads him to speak of the 
balance between divine love and conversion, capable of dis- 
turbing the equilibrium in favour of the sinner. This tiresome 
digression is fortunately interrupted by some very welcome 
chapters on the present corruption of the Church as con- 
trasted with the gospel life of the first centuries after Christ 
(chapters xxx.—lxv.). Then he returns to the subjects dealt 
with at the end of the second part: the creation, the influence 
of the planets, etc. (chapters Ixvi.-Ixxi.). 

Finally the last part, by no means the least beautiful, 
is a meditation on the passion of Christ, applied to the seven 
canonical hours. 

Thus not all must be neglected in this voluminous 
work. Here and there are flashes of genius, though of a 
genius already fading and which, we feel, is on the point of 
flickering out. 

Death had already deprived Ruysbroeck of some of his 


dearest friends. Guillaume Jordaens, the translator of The 


1 Instructions sur les états d’oraison (édit. de Versailles, 1817), pp. 56 ss. 


LAST YEARS 151 


Spiritual Marriage, had died in 1372; the bonus cocus in 
1377. Ruysbroeck was conscious of that solitude of the old 
who feel themselves abandoned one after another by the 
witnesses of their maturity. Their friends are more numerous 
on the other side than on this. And then the desire to rejoin 
them becomes keener. 

As though to leave the soul wholly engrossed in the 
interior vision of the things of God, Ruysbroeck’s eyes had 
gradually become dimmed to the splendour of this perishable 
world. The aged prior could no longer betake himself to the 
chapel to partake of the Eucharist. He shared the room of 
the provost Franco de Coudenberg, old and infirm like 
himself. And his days were spent in stirring up the ashes of 
past memories. 

Thus going back upon the course of his long life, the old 
man could more clearly discern the wonderful guiding hand 
of God. Then his heart would leap with gratitude. A holy 
fervour filled him, an unquenchable thirst after eternity: 
sicut cervus desiderans ad fontes aquarum. In trembling accents 
he would now chant the first few lines of Psalm xlii.: 
Quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Det mei ? 

One night—how wonderful is the vitality of that child- 
heart which never wholly dies in man!—one night his mother 
appeared before him, announcing that Advent would not 
pass without God receiving back to himself his old servant. 
The biographer was perfectly right to mention this. Indeed, 
is it not a very appealing spectacle—that mother - smile 
appearing over the death-bed of the old man, as it did over 
the cradle of the child? 

Thus warned, Ruysbroeck prepared for death, cum tota 
mentis devotione et alacritate. And the brothers, as they 
pressed around his bed, when they saw so joyful a look on 
his countenance, said: “If it is an act of piety to bewail our 
brother Jan who is about to die, it is an act of even greater 
piety to rejoice with one who is about to enjoy eternal life.” 

As a final act of humility, the old monk was desirous of 
leaving the provost’s room in which he had been nursed up 


nya RUYSBROECK (PHE*ADMIRABLES 


to this stage. He wished to die in the common infirmary. 
No sooner had he been carried there than fever, complicated 
with dysentery, laid hold on him. Hastily the monks sent 
for the dean of the church of Diest, a very dear friend of the 
prior, wir artis medicinae expertissimus. But what can man 
do when God summons? 

The fever lasted two weeks. When the dying man was 
aware that all his flesh had faded away, he had himself raised 
in bed, as though to die upright, facing the praying brothers: 
coram positis fratribus et orantibus. Then, after having com- 
mended to them his soul, sanus mente et facie rutilis, he 
gently fell back and gave up the ghost, without a spasm 
of pain. 

At the same moment, it is said, Gérard de Groote was 
informed of his friend’s death: the bells of Deventer began 
to ring as though a divine force had set them moving.! 

This was in the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and 
eighty-one, on the second of December, the octave of Saint 
Catherine. Ruysbroeck was eighty-eight years of age; 
sixty-four of these had been almost entirely dedicated 
to the priesthood. 

Such was the impression of sanctity left by this man of 
God, that the brothers who kept vigil over his body saw the 
dead prior rise from his funeral couch and approach an altar. 
He was arrayed in his sacerdotal raiment and enveloped in 
such splendour as no human tongue could express.? Thus 
does the human heart resurrect those it has greatly loved. 
On the morrow, the brothers—fentes pariter et gaudentes— 
buried their old prior in the church. This they did, says the 
biographer, with more inner devotion than outer solemnity. 
They hoped rather to be helped by him than to aid him by 
their prayers. 

Five years afterwards, when the provost Franco de 


1“Cui (G. Magno) etiam Deus obitum amantissimi patris revelavit, ut in 
compulsatione campanarum multis civibus audientibus manifestavit, ejusque 
animam una hora purgatam ad caelestem gloriam transisse quibusdam amicis 
suis secretius indicavit.”—Thomas à Kempis, Vita G. Magni, cap. x. 

2 Pomerius, op. cit., lib. II. cap. xxxii. 


LAST YEARS 153 


Coudenberg died, Jean Tserclaes, bishop of Cambrai, who 
had come to conduct the funeral, had the remains of Ruys- 
broeck, along with those of the provost, transported to the 
new chapel, which had been consecrated on the last day of 
the previous October. Thus were the two friends united in 
death, as they had been in life. 

On the tombstone the brothers engraved this inscription: 


HIC JACET TRANSLATVS DEVOTVS PATER 
D. JOANNES DE RVYSEBROECK 
I. PRIOR HVJVS MONASTERII 
QUI OBIIT ANNO DOMINI 
M. C. CCLXXXI 
II DIE DECEMBRIS 


What can legend add to the beautiful simplicity of so 
tranquil a life? It is to be regretted that popular piety, in 
its desire to honour its heroes, but too often profanes them. 
Pomerius, usually so prudent, cannot help relating certain 
miraculous events which mar and disfigure the end of his 
biography. Does he not tell of a beguine of Malines, suddenly 
smitten with raging toothache, who was instantly cured on 
touching the affected tooth with one of Ruysbroeck’s? And, 
when the bishop Tserclaes had the prior’s tomb opened, does 
he not relate that the body and clothes were found perfectly © 
intact, with the exception of the end of the nose—excepta 
dumtaxat nast sut extremitate—and that a delicious odour 
immediately issued from the coffin? 

We will leave these puerilities, and regard them arly 
as an expression of the devotion which the masses feel for 
their benefactors. And, indeed, it was not long before 
the Church instituted a veritable cult in honour of one whom 
the people revered as a saint. Once a year the canons of 
Sainte-Gudule, on the Sunday following the festival of the 
Trinity, proceeded on foot through the forest of Soignes to 
Groenendael, to pay homage to the memory of Jan Ruys- 
broeck, “la fleur odoriférante du monastère.” 

And yet, in spite of the urgent measures taken by the 
clergy, the beatification of Ruysbroeck did not take place 


154 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


till long afterwards. In 1624 archbishop Boonen addressed 
to the Congregation of Rites at Rome all the elements of 
the informative trial. Interrupted in 1630, this trial was 
resumed in 1634, and then finally ended by a decree of 
Urban VIII., who did not regard the justification as’adequate.1 
Only in 1885 did the archbishop of Malines, Cardinal Goossens, 
take the matter in hand again, and in 1909 the Congregation 
of Rites gave its approval to the institution of particular 
prayers on behalf of the blessed saint. 

But glory of another kind has been reserved for Ruys- 
broeck: that attributed to him by historians for some years 
past. We are becoming more and more convinced that the 
germ of modern thought must be sought much farther back 
than Cartesianism. Modern philosophy has rehabilitated the 
hitherto decried mysticism which was elaborated in the 
monasterial cells of the fourteenth century. Let us too dwell 
with it in the laborious solitude of Groenendael, to try 
and find out what we owe intellectually to the humble 
forest monk whose life has here been traced. 


1 The documents of the trial are preserved in the archbishopric of Malines 
in two volumes in folio: Processus auctoritate ordinaria illustrissimi et reverendissimi 
Jacobi Boonen, anno 1624, etc. Acta annis 1626-7 . . . super sanctitate vitae, 
virtutibus et miraculis Ruysbrochii. 


» 


SECOND PART 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES 


/ 
Ur 
à aah? 
M Re À 
AN 





SECOND PART 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES 


CHAPTER X 
EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 


SCARCELY any attempt has been made by most of Ruys- 
broeck’s commentators to reconcile his thought with a 
definite set of doctrines. The utmost they have done has 
been to analyse the three books of The Spiritual Marriage, 
without seeing that by so doing they were regarding as fixed 
and immovable the ever-changing and expanding thoughts 
and ideas of our mystic. 

Such work as that of Ruysbroeck is in perpetual flux. 
To know it well one must have traversed it all over, just as 
a forester goes about his forest and knows the paths that 
link together the chief clumps of trees. 

If such an effort be made, this work, far from being the 
fruit of undisciplined contemplation, will stand forth as a 
strong and definite structure. Ruysbroeck is truly the last 
of the great speculatives of the Middle Ages. His mysticism 
is not an end in itself; it is a means of knowledge, in the 
same way as logic itself. 

Like the Gnostics of the third century, like Plotinus, like 
the elaborators of the great medieval Summae, Ruysbroeck 
had reflected on the important question of being, and on its 
corollary: How can man, exiled in matter, return to his place 
of origin ? Certainly before solving the problem in his own way 
he meditated long and caught glimpses of a majestic structure, 
all of whose parts combine to bear heavenwards the peak of 
reason, like some cathedral spire. 

We will therefore examine this bold edifice as it shows 
itself to us in its allegorical garb. 

157 


158 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


I. Metuop 


In all research work we should begin, according to 
Aristotle, by ascertaining the existence of the object of 
research, and then study the means calculated to enable the 
mind to apprehend this object. 

Ruysbroeck does not long deliberate with himself as to 
the existence of God. The God demonstrable to the mind of 
the great speculatives becomes the God perceptible to the 
heart of the mystics. God zs. This fundamental proposition 
Ruysbroeck admits; at all events, he regards as valid the 
reasonings of Anselm and Saint Thomas. The five Thomistic 
paths seem to him to have settled the question. 

Not only God zs, but he is also the one supreme reality 
whereof the whole created world is but the reflection or the 
emanation. But what would a God be whom the mind could 
not grasp, a God set up by reasoning, but who remained 
separate from the creature by the whole extent of infinity? 
Besides, says Ruysbroeck, this rational knowledge of God 
is so limited that it may be compared “to the point of a needle 
in relation to all that is created, and even less.” A pair of 
compasses can apply only to that which is less than or equal 
to the utmost distance between its two points. 

The sublime and incomprehensible nature of God transcends all 
creatures, in heaven and on earth, for all that the creature can grasp is 
the created, and God is above all that is created. . . . All comprehension 
is too narrow to enfold him. ... He therefore who would wish to know what 


God is and to apply himself to this search would do a thing forbidden; he 
would go out of his senses.? 


Though the dialectical path is closed to us, the universal 
aspiration of beings after their common origin proves the 
possibility of another mode of knowledge. As hunger is a 
proof of bread, so the nostalgia for the divine is proof of an 
apprehensible God. To Ruysbroeck, therefore, it is clear 
that there is a philosophical science enabling man to raise 
himself to absolute good. 


1 Cf. Sertillanges, S. Thomas d'Aquin, t. I. pp. 142-64. 
3 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xxi. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 159 


In determining this science he proceeds by a process of 
elimination. First of all we are confined within the visible 
universe. Our senses reveal this world to us, but the revelation 
crushes us by keeping us within the confines of our prison. Eyes, 
ears and hands, in their fevered investigation, are able to 
contact only the prison bars. Again, what confidence can we 
have in information obtained by the senses? This unstable 
world, in continual process of change, affords only impressions 
shifting as itself, ‘a moving shadow.” 1. 

But one can imagine, one can prolong into the infinite the 
lines traced in the finite, draw conclusions from what one sees 
to what one does not see. Still, imagination is too closely 
knit to sensation; the pictures it creates also carry us off 
towards unreasonable joys. Being purely subjective, the 
deductions of imagination can have no reality in God.? 

Man nevertheless has worked out a science; i.e. from the 
study of the external world he has concluded that there are 
invariable laws, laws that participate in eternity. Science, 
then, is an expression of truth, and thus of God. Astronomical 
numbers, lines and circuits tell us of God, and enable us to 
contact at least one of his attributes. Will knowledge then 
show us the path we seek? No, says Ruysbroeck, for however 
correct the conclusions of science, they apply only to the 
physical world. And this latter is but a part of the universe; 
it is, as it were, fitted into the spiritual universe which covers 
it like a dome. Now the universe, as a spiritual organisation, 
is solely dependent on spiritual knowledge. 

Along each of these three tracks man will fail, for his 
starting-point is wrong. Fortunately within himself there is 
a divine element which proceeds from God as the spark pro- 
ceeds from the fire: the soul. But what is the soul? Buried 
within us, it is sometimes so ill-treated that it loses even the 
remembrance of its origin. From the depths of its prison it 
utters its gentle plaint. What is it? Incapable of defining it, 
Ruysbroeck piles image upon image; it is a divine exile, a 

1 The Seven Cloisters, chapter xi. 


2 The Mirror, chapter iii.; The Twelve Beguines, chapters xxix., Xxx. 
8 The Seven Degrees, chapters viii., x.; The Seven Cloisters, chapter xvii. 


w 


160 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


prisoner who sings, a spark, a breath of God, an emanation, 
the effigy of a divine seal. Whatever it be, it alone can tell 
us of God, for it is a part of God.t 

Ruysbroeck’s entire work is a chant to the human soul. 
Distinct from the intellect—on which depend the perceptive 
faculties: imagination, understanding, deduction—the soul 
is one, and its mission is ome: to escape from exile and return 
to God. Thus our essential work is to consider our soul, to 
possess it “as a kingdom,” and, while adapting our freedom 
to its dictates, to advance towards God.? 

Ruysbroeck’s doctrine is thus nothing else than the story 
of the drama whose theatre is the universe. 

A divine drama, in three acts, which the Gnostics had 
already attempted to systematise, and whose broad stages 
had been determined by the Neoplatonists: the soul, born 
in the divine abode, endowed like its creator with divine 
attributes; then its decline, its exile within a material uni- 
verse, and its prolonged nostalgia; finally the groping in 
the darkness, and, after attempts innumerable, the return 
to God. The very world itself is carried along in this universal 
advance, whereof history is but the restless expression. 

Now that the principle has been stated, let us see how 
Ruysbroeck works out his ideas regarding it. 


Il. Toe Drama oF THE SOUL 


1. The line of human destiny may be represented by a 
curve. It starts from God, then bends and curves inwards 
towards the lower world, and afterwards, having completed 
the circle, rises and returns to God. 


§ 1. God and the Divine Hypostases 


At the starting-point, God, who has not yet realised him- 
self by any creation, is simply Being, the principle of all 


1 Compare the fine saying: ‘‘God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.” 
The Spiritual Marriage, book IT. chapter iii. 

* The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter i.; The Kingdom, chapter xxv.; 
The Sparkling Stone, chapter vi. | 


DAE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK r61 


beings, without attribute. He is “an imageless, desert bare- 
ness, which ever corresponds with eternity.” + From this 
being-principle (overwesen) proceeds the entire series of 
creations. The multiple is a limitation of deity; in its 
essence, deity is unity. In naming it the One (de eenheit), we 
express alike its absolute simplicity and the impotence of 
philosophy to name God. All the terms employed can be but 
approximations: the increate, the unmeasured, the source, 
the life, the staff or stay. To define God we must necessarily 
apply to him the standards. of the created, “intellectual 
images conceived of the simple essence of God according to 
the created mode.” ? 


God is so sublimely high [says Ruysbroeck] that no created process 
can reach him; he is so simple that in him all multiplicity must cease and 
have its beginning. He is beauty that adorns heaven and earth, wealth 
whence all creatures proceed while remaining essentially connected 
therewith... 3 

And the reason why Ruysbroeck repeats himself in so 
many images and analogies is in order clearly to show that 
to affirm God is actually to reduce him. To say that God is 
good, just, intelligent, is to enclose him within a created 
conception which is applicable only to created things. God 
is not good: he is the principle of Goodness. By giving 
attributes to Deity we empoverish it, for it has need of 
nothing. 

Here we recognise the influence of the two theological 
paths of the Pseudo-Dionysius: that which affirms (xaraparuki) 
and that which denies (arofarcx), and the latter is mani- 
festly superior to the former, seeing that it leaves God in 
his one and limitless essence, dominating all categories.‘ 
Negation is a mode of speech which removes all idea of 
limit and of impotence. Indeed, negation affirms, in the 
only way possible, the qualities contrary to that which 
it denies. 

It is futile to enter into the development of method. God 
is not eternal, he is above eternity. God is not a being, he is 


1 The Mirror, chapter xxiii. ? The Kingdom, chapter xxxiv. 3 Jbid, 
* The Sparkling Stone, chapter ix., in fine, 


162 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


above being; neither is God essence, he is superessential, etc. 
If we go through the same task by setting over against God 
the categories as Aristotle had established them and as the 
teachers of philosophy in the thirteenth century had borrowed 
them from him, we shall arrive at the same result. Essence, 
quality, quantity, relation, situation, space, time, action 
and passion—are equally inapplicable to God. This God, 
unnamed and unnameable, is, in Ruysbroeck’s own words: 
“a simple unity, without any mode, without time or space, 
without before or after, without desire or possession, without 
light or darkness. He is a perpetual now, the bottomless 
abyss, the darkness of silence, the desert wilderness,” etc.? 

In reality, the negative path, by setting God above all 
conceivable limitations, ends in the dissolution of Deity. 
What is an inconceivable God of whom the least we can say 
is that he is the negation of our purest conception? God is 
nothing, without being nothingness. What fear then takes 
possession of the soul, incapable of reaching that towards 
which it feels invincibly attracted? 

It is here that the rôle of affirmative theology begins. 
It lends itself to human weakness by restoring the ideas 
about God which the first process had denied. Wishing to 
bring God nearer to human thought, it acts like the lens of 
an astronomical telescope which brings nearer to the observer 
the distant star that yet remains unchanged. Who would 
seek God with intent should make him present to himself.” 
And Ruysbroeck adds the following words which remind 
one strangely of the monism of the Neoplatonists ?: 


In whatsoever manner or under whatsoever name one pictures God as 
master of everything created, one is always right. Whether dealing with 
one of the divine persons regarded after its nature and its productiveness, 
or with God regarded as preserver, redeemer, creator, or gua authority, 
beatitude, wisdom, truth, goodness, all this with the infinite character 
_befitting the divine nature, one is right. Though there be many names we 
thus attribute to God, his lofty nature is a simple and nameless being 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book III. chapter vi.; The Mirror, chapter xvii. 
2 Enneads, V. 5, 3; 5, ©; 8, 3; 8, 4; 8, 7. Indeed, by insisting on regarding the 
pagan pantheon as only personified abstraction, Neoplatonism ends in poly- 
demonism, Cf. Jean Reville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères, pp. 117, 118. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 163 


for every creature; but by reason of his incomprehensible nobility and 
sublimity, we make use of all these names, being unable to find either a 
name or a mode of speech that fully expresses him.! 

Without seeing the consequences that might be deduced 
from this relativism, Ruysbroeck is now to embark upon the 
afhrmative path. 

In the first place the One can be only the Good. It is the 
central focus whence emanate those rays: the virtues. Thus, 
by reascending these rays in the opposite direction to their 
passage, one will come to God. It follows that, in order to 
know something of the Being whence all flows, its emanations 
must be studied. God being of the spiritual order, the soul 
is our widest field of investigation. For “the spirit receives 
and bears the impress of its eternal image, uninterruptedly, 
just as an untarnished mirror faithfully retains the image of 
the object set before it, and gives back a clear impression 
thereon; 

This divine refraction, the source of our knowledge, is 
systematised by Ruysbroeck in his theory of the Paradigm, 
which concerns alike his conception of God and his doctrine 
of creation. 

The whole universe is ordered in the likeness of a higher 
reality. God is the supreme Archetype in whom all things 
pre-exist ideally. Each sensible being is constituted by virtue 
of an idea which is imprinted after the fashion of a seal upon 
wax.' But the clearness of this impress depends on the 
proximity in which beings find themselves to their archetype. 
Hence the differences in nature, the inequalities of dignity, 
for the paradigm itself is perfect and cannot be regarded as 
responsible for the imperfections with which the world is 
filled. The impress cannot be made clearly except under 
certain conditions. “Keep thy mind naked and bare, empty 
of all sense-image; keep thy intellect open, inclined towards 
eternal life, and thy spirit, like a pure living mirror spread 
out before God, shall be ready to receive the divine likeness.” 5 

1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xv. 


* Jbid., book II. chapter lvii. | 3 The Mirror, chapter xvii. 
4 The Twelve Beguines, chapter ix. 5 Jbid., chapter x. 


164 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Now, on examining this refraction of the image of God within 
ourselves, it is seen that the image is not one, as might have 
been expected, coming from the One, but threefold. The 
divine ray is refracted into three fundamental faculties.? 
These faculties correspond to the three divine hypostases. 

In reading Ruysbroeck, it is easy to see how embarrassed 
he was in explaining the relationship of an impure world to 
perfect Being, and also the reasons which led him to the 
solution of the three hypostases. Perhaps he found the 
Trinitarian doctrine ready at hand. This doctrine, however, 
far from being an a priori to Ruysbroeck, is a logical cul- 
mination, just as the theory of the procession of the rl 
stases in Plotinus is governed by his particular cosmology.? 
Admitting a God, the principle of all being, above movement 
and action, how has the universe been able to issue from 
this “eternal repose” ? Such is the question that dominates 
Ruysbroeck’s theodicy. Let us try and see how he solves it. 

At the outset, what reason has the One to beget? The 
Neoplatonists explain it by a necessity of his nature The 
God of Ruysbroeck also begets by a necessity of nature, as 
fire emits heat, but also by a determination of freedom. 
God wills a manifestation of his glory. Ruysbroeck frequently 
repeats that man is the honour of God, his eternal and 
immutable exemplar (the rpwrérurov of the Greeks) exists 
in God from all eternity. And this virtuality implies a 
realisation. 

The divine essence may be communicated. But as the 
first effect of divine fecundity should be as perfect as possible, 
the first manifestation of God will be himself, in his creative . 
power, or the Father. Between the Increate and this first 
hypostasis there is but one degree of difference: it is distinct 
from him without being separated.* The Father will after- 


wards beget a being wherein he will know himself fully, where- 

1 The Mirror, chapter x. 

? Bréhier, La Philosophie de Plotin, in Revue des Cours et Conférences, 1922, 
p. 640. 

8 Enneads, V. 1, 6, 7. 

4 The Spiritual Marriage, lib. III. chapter v.: “The Father omnipotent, in 
the deeps of his fecundity, totally comprehends himself.” 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 165 


in not only his own person, but the form of things, will appear 
to him. This is the Son, or the Word, “‘begotten as second 
person in deity. And by this eternal begetting all creatures 
are born eternally before having been created in time. Thus 
God has seen and known them within himself, separately, 
according to the Ideas that are in him.” ! 

By the Word, the acting power of God, the world was 
created. Thus man was born. Is that all? No, for the two 
hypostases having above them a stage in perfection to cross, 
in order to return to the cause that begot them, it remains 
for man also to be secured the means of returning to his 
source. The Son, therefore, begets an active principle, an 
energy: the Holy Spirit. Beneath his influence man can 
return towards him who has begotten him, and become one 
with him. Thus the circle will be completed: the three hypo- 
stases and man, who is the final term of the divine hierarchy, 
eternally being converted towards the One.? 

As we see, this theodicy is based on the idea of perfection. 
Procession enables us to recognise that every imperfect being 
is separated, by only one degree, from a being nearer to 
perfection than itself. Ruysbroeck is thus led to reject all 
idea of ultimate corruption or evil. Perfection is everywhere, 
both on the ascending and on the descending arc. Frequently 
does Ruysbroeck express this idea in the image of the ebb 
and flow of the tides. God is a rising and falling sea. He 
ever extends his flow to those who love him, according to the 
need and the worth of each, and in his ebb he gathers to 
himself all who have been overwhelmed.” * The dual theory 
of hypostases and procession has enabled Ruysbroeck to do 
away with the difficulty inherent in every system that insists 
on deriving the multiple from the one, the imperfect from the 
perfect. This God, who knows himself, is both creator and 
creature; what he begets can be none other than himself. 

1 Ibid. “In that brightness which is the Son, God sees himself, bare, with 
all that lives in him, for all that he is and has he gives to the Son, with the 
exception of fatherhood.” 


? The Book of Supreme Truth, chapter x. 
5’ The Kingdom, chapter xxii.; The Spiritual Marriage, book II. chapter xli. 


O 


166 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


There is no place where he is not. His energy sustains and 
guides the worlds in their sure circuit, rises with the sap of 
the trees, flows in the water of the springs, beats in the arteries 
of man and beast, sparkles in the crystal, works in human 
consciousness. Thus does the varied activity of the world 
appear to Ruysbroeck like some magnificent spectacle. He 
explains his meaning on this point in his theory of creation 
which we now proceed to examine. 


Sa) vhs 


The universe pre-existed ideally in God. The ideal forms, 
which are the initial causes of creation, Ruysbroeck calls 
exemplars or ideas.1 This is very similar to the theory of the 
germinal reasons of Stoicism, revived by Neoplatonism. 

No wonder we find, in a mystic like Ruysbroeck, a meta- 
physical introduction of this nature. The whole of the Middle 
Ages was shaken by the problem which had divided Plato 
and Aristotle: that of universal ideas. Hence, in the schools, 
we have the quarrel between the realists and the nominal- 
ists, and Abélard’s doctrine of conciliation: conceptualism. 
Assuredly Ruysbroeck did not remain alien to these jousts. 
He made his own that one of these conceptions which 
regarded the first reasons of creation as being in God. 

In this theory the Son, or the Word, corresponds to the 
Intelligence of Plotinus. In him God, knows himself, and 
perceives, projected into the universal life, not only the in- 
tellectual and moral essences, like goodness, beauty, virtue, 
etc., but also physical beings. Fire, air, trees, stones exist in 
idea. And it is the Word, on whom devolves the rôle of a 
veritable Demiurge, that secures for the idea its sensible 
or visible translation.? 

The exemplar, then, of a being or a thing is in God a 
perfection, and, by the law of procession, this being and this 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book III. chapter v. 

2 The Sparkling Stone, chapter ix. Note, however, that Ruysbroeck some- 
times attributes creation to the third hypostasis, as in this passage: “The Holy 
Spirit is the finger of God that created all nature, the heaven, earth and all 
beings”’ (The Kingdom, chapter xxxv.). 


TEE DOCTRINE OR RUYSBROECK:: 167 


thing, however far removed they may be from their exemplar 
in the scale of creations, inevitably tend to return to their 
primitive perfection. Ruysbroeck himself says: 

We have a living life which is eternal in God, before all created being. 
It is according to this life that God created us, not from this life nor from 
his own substance. . .. God is a living exemplar of all that he has done. ... 
And all that he sees, in distinct knowledge by the mirror of his wisdom, in 
images, orders, forms, reasons—all this is truth and life. . .. All of us have, 


above our created being, an eternal life in God as in our living cause, who 
made and created us from nothing.! 


It follows that man does not constitute a reality in itself 
any more than do things. He is a theophany. This is what 
Ruysbroeck means when he speaks of creation ex mibilo, 
creation being properly a vision of God: “By this eternal 
begetting,” he says, “all creatures are born eternally before 
having been created in time. God has seen and contemplated 
them within himself, separately, according to the ideas that 
are in him, and as other than himself.” ? 

On the third hypostasis devolves the rôle of ordainer of 
the world. The Holy Spirit keeps alive and upholds what has 
been created. Above all else, he is energy. He actively envelops 
and permeates all things, stirs up spiritual energies, pours 
himself forth like fertilising water into all creatures. It is 
also he who effects the return of creation to God: ‘“ Hence 
comes a Love which is called the Holy Spirit, a link between 
Father and Son and between Son and Father, and beings are 
wholly enveloped in and permeated with this Love which 
causes them to return to the unity whence the Father 
begets eternally.” * 

This theory responds to a dual question: How can God, 
who in essence is eternal rest, work externally? And how can 
an imperfect creation derive from Perfection? There remains 
a third: the question of the multiple, which Parmenides had 
purely and simply suppressed, but which insistently asserted 
itself upon Plotinus and his followers. 

To solve it, Ruysbroeck introduces, along with eternal 


1 The Mirror, chapter xvii. * The Spiritual Marriage, book III, chapter v. 
3 The Kingdom, chapter xxv. 


168 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


creation, a perpetual creation in time. This—although the 
expression is found nowhere in the writings of our mystic 
—is the Neoplatonist theory of emanations. Fire is created, 
but the heat it radiates is not a creation, it is an emanation. 
A grain of amber is a creation, but the odorous particles 
released therefrom are emanations.t Emanation, strictly 
speaking, is the projection without of the virtues which con- 
stitute the essence of created things. Manifestly, the farther 
the emanations remove from their source, the feebler they 
become. Their virtue diminishes in direct ratio to the distance 
traversed, and finally becomes so diluted as to be no longer 
perceptible. Thus, emanations from the divine hypostases, 
striking with gradually diminishing energy, can beget only 
multiple and different beings. We have really to deal with 
a veritable degradation of energy: this explains the in- 
equalities, differences of worth and quality, right throughout 
the world of sense, which only the diminished reflections of 
the original ray any longer reach. This is what Ruysbroeck 
means when he says: “this fecundity of the divine persons 
. . - ever works in a living differentiation.” ? On the lowest 
rung of the ladder of beings there still subsists, however tiny 
it be, an emanation from the generating hypostasis. This it 
is which, by successive conversions of inferior to superior, 
ensures the return to God. Return to God, then, is nothing 
else than the reduction of the many to the one. 


e e e e e e e 


Let us now see at work these living reasons, these first 
causes from which all things are derived. Ruysbroeck here 
sketches a magnificent picture in which the universe appears 
as a threefold structure. In reality there are three worlds: 
a divine world corresponding to the essence of Deity; a 
spiritual world; a material world. This tripartite universe 

| (macrocosm) is completely reflected in man (microcosm). 

First, there is the higher heaven, the Empyrean, “which 


1 The Book of Supreme Truth, chapter x. 
* The Twelve Beguines, chapter xiv. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 169 


is pure and simple clearness, enclosing and enveloping all 
the heavens, as well as every corporeal and material creature, 
as with a sphere. . . .” 

It has for its adornments God himself and the saints. 
The Empyrean, pure and simple clearness, corresponds to 
the superessence of God. 

The second heaven is called Crystalline, by reason of its 
clearness. Its summit is the primum mobile, “ because it is the 
starting-point and the beginning of all the movements of 
heaven and of the elements. It corresponds to the spiritual 
nature of man.” 

Lastly, below the Crystalline heaven, we have the firma- 
ment. “By reason of its movement . . . all creatures move, 
live and grow, and it has received, for its adornment and 
light, the splendour and clearness of planets and stars. . . .” 
Indeed, it is on the influence of the planets that depend the 
life and growth of all creatures, in a mode peculiar to each. 
To the firmament correspond in man the higher forces 
(overste crachten), which are in immediate correlation with 
the movements of the planets. “God created the planets,” 
says Ruysbroeck, “to serve men in two ways: the movement 
and influence of the heavens have to do with begetting, with 
life and growth... and secondly, the sky was created because 
of its beauty and its clearness.” 1 To the seven planets corre- 
spond the seven gifts of the spirit. 

Finally, in the centre of the firmament is the earth, made 
up of the four elements: earth or clay, water, air and fire, 
which correspond to the four lower forces of man (natuerlike 
or nederste crachten). 

Enveloping the cosmic world, and dominating it, is the 
spiritual creation. This latter comprises angels and men. 
“The wherefore of the creation of angels and men lies in 
the infinite goodness of God and his munificence which have 
inclined him to reveal to reasonable creatures his own 
beatitude and his sovereign riches.” 3 

The angels are divided into three hierarchical orders, all 
1 The Kingdom, chapter xxxvii. * The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter ii. 


170 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


placed above man to help and direct him in the three lives: 
the mystic life, the interior life, the active life. With the mystic 
life is related the superior hierarchy, Thrones, Cherubim and 
Seraphim. The Principalities, Powers and Dominions help 
man to live a perfect interior life. The members of the inferior 
hierarchy, Angels, Archangels and Virtues, sustain man 
in active life. The angels were created before man, and en- 
dowed with free-will. Those who used this free-will to find 
delight in themselves turned aside from God, and fell into the 
accursed darkness where they are to remain eternally. 

Man was created to take the place of the fallen angels. 
He is the end and the crown of all creation. Not only is he 
the living and eternal mirror of God, he also reproduces in 
his nature the three stages of the universe. His soul, 2% tts 
simple bareness, is the reflection of the One seated in the 
Empyrean. His spiritual nature corresponds to the primum 
mobile and reflects the Father. His physical nature, in its 
higher powers, corresponds to the firmament, whose planets 
maintain physical life on earth. Finally, his corporeal person 
is formed of the four elements which make up the earth. 
The earth is permeated by a living energy which is none other 
than the Holy Spirit, and this energy works in man to ensure 
his return to the One. 

In this ensemble the soul constitutes itself a creation 
apart, gifted with the three properties corresponding to the 
three persons of the Trinity. 


It is like an eternal and living mirror of God, continually and uninter- 
ruptedly receiving the eternal begetting of the Son. . . . Hence it comes 
about that the substance of our soul possesses three properties which form 
but one in nature. The first property of the soul is an essential imageless 
bareness: through this we resemble and are one with the Father and his 
divine nature. The second property may be called the higher reason of 
the soul: it is a mirror-like clearness wherein we receive the Son of God, 
eternal truth. By reason of this clearness we are like him. The third pro- 
perty we call the spark of the soul: it is an intimate and natural ten- 
dency of the soul towards its source, and it is there that we receive the 
Holy Spirit.i 


Such is the broad-based structure wherein Ruysbroeck 


wishes to find a setting for the divine drama of the soul. 
1 The Mirror, chapter viii. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 171 


In his details this image is manifestly very far from our 
own conception, though none the less on that account do 
we regard it as a mighty attempt to solve the problem 
of destiny. 

By closely linking religious life with a representation of 
the universe, by establishing with almost geometrical pre- 
cision the manifold interplay of concordances and analogies, 
Ruysbroeck shut out all mechanical ideas and introduced 
life and intelligence into every province of the Cosmos. At 
the same time he eliminated fatality: God communicating 
himself to everything by a series of processes, there is in each 
part of the universe an element superior to corruption and 
death. Such a world is eternal, and whatever the changing 
conditions of being, there is only one issue: that which 
sheds light upon Deity. 

But is not this limitless animism so like pantheism as 
to be mistaken for it? The divine emanations produce the 
cosmic forces; the latter slough off into spiritual activities. 
Nothing, then, is outside of the dynamic current which eter- 
nally issues from Deity; this current permeates the stone as 
well as man, the star as well as the animal. The only difference 
is one of degree. We are confronted with a veritable frac- 
tioning of Deity, and Ruysbroeck evades the extreme conse- 
quences of pantheism only by the final reabsorption of all 
things into unity. 

Besides, this vitalism is not without a certain grandeur. 
Ruysbroeck traverses the universe as if it were a sanctuary. 
His emotions are all of a religious order. He is never tired 
of admiring the beauty of the world and delights in describing 
the starry heavens, the leafy forests, the rippling streams, 
the minerals; he piles image upon image, unable to pour 
into the narrow mould of verbal expression his state of 
exuberant and wild enthusiasm. “God,” he says, “has made 
nothing finer or nobler, in heaven or on earth, than the order 
and the diversity that reign amongst all creatures.” 1 Such is 


1 The Kingdom, chapter xxxix.; The Seven Cloisters, chapter xvii.; The Seven 
Degrees, chapter v, 


172 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the theme running through the whole work of our mystic, 
a theme he succeeded in enriching, by means of his powerful 
verbal gifts, with amazingly varied means of expression. 


§ 3. Man 


We have seen that man, placed between the world of 
spirit and the world of sense, participates in both. In him the 
image of the Trinity is perfectly reflected. In the Son he has 
been created, known and elected from all eternity. 

(i.) Apart, however, from this eternal creation, there is, 
as in the cosmic order, a creation in time. This it is that 
fashions individual temperaments. It borrows, as its agent, 
the intelligent forces that are in the stars and so determines 
the life of sense (sinlike leven). Thus there are seven tempera- 
ments (æisen van complexien) as there are seven planets. 

This determinism is corrected by the spiritual action of 
the planets, to which action the seven gifts of the spirit 
correspond. This dual action has its origin in God: the one 
is exercised upon our lower and the other upon our higher 
nature. Man, however, by a determination of will, can escape 
both from planetary action and from the influence of the 
Holy Spirit. “Over our free-will neither thing nor person has 
power, neither the heavenly bodies, nor creatures, nor any- 
thing other than God alone and ourselves.” 1 

The corporeal nature, formed of the four elements, cannot 
wholly perish, in this sense that its elements return to the 
great reservoir from which they were taken. Man has there- 
fore no right to despise his body, to hand it over to inferior 
lusts and desires. Is not this body the marvellously wrought 
casket intended for that incomparable jewel: the soul? 
The physical nature, then, constitutes the substructure upon 
which must be built the human personality. And the latter, 
exclusively spiritual in its nature, is similar to—whilst all 
the time less than—God. 

The human personality is animated by a single life, which 
appears under a dual aspect: soul and spirit. 

1 The Kingdom, chapter iv.; The Twelve Beguines, chapter xxxi. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 173 


(ii.) The soul (sie) is not a creation, strictly speaking; one 
may say that it was created from nothing, for it is a re- 
flection of the image of God. In it a distinction must be 
made between powers and properties. 

The lower powers (nederste crachten) “are governed and 
ordered by the virtues which adorn the moral life of man.” 
These are: the irascible power (tornighe cracht), which has to 
dominate everything opposed to morality, with prudence 
as its representative virtue; the concupiscible power (be- 
gheerlike cracht), with its virtue, temperance, whose duty it 
is to restrain all material or carnal excess; the reason (rede- 
licheit), adorned with. justice, which regulates, orders and 
directs all things; and finally, freedom of will (wrzheit des 
willen), which finds its exercise in moral force and gives man 
the courage to dominate the vicissitudes of life. 

These lower powers regulate the moral life; the higher 
powers (overste crachten) dominate the intellectual life. First, 
we have memory (verhavene gedachte or memorie), not to be 
confused with the faculty of recollection.t This is thought 
directed towards God dwelling in the human soul. After- 
wards we have intelligence (verstennisse), or thought turned 
towards God as the cause and creator of the universe. Lastly, 
will (wzlle). 

Independently of these powers, the soul is endowed with 
three properties (eyghenscape) which are none other than 
projections into the soul of the three hypostases. The first 
is an essential imageless bareness (onghebeelde weselike 
bloetheit), “whereby we resemble and are united to the 
Father and his divine nature.” The second property may 
be called the superior reason of the soul (overste redene), 
wherein the Son is reflected. The third property is the spark 
of the soul (vonke der sielen), “the intimate and natural 
tendency of the soul towards its source; it is there that we 
receive the Holy Spirit and become like him.” ? 

By uniting together, the powers and the properties of the 


1Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Ia, quaest. LX XIX., art. 6. 
* The Mirror, chapter viii. 


174 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


soul constitute a higher state which is called the spirit 
(gheest), and in which alone union with God is realised. 

(iii.) Thus the spirit is another name for the soul, made 
capable of unity (enicheit). This unity may come about in 
threefold form: First, there is the unity of the lower powers 
and of the five senses in the heart, the principle of corporeal 
life. Then, strictly speaking, it is called soul (anima), for it 
is the mover of the body which it animates. The second unity 
is reasonable and spiritual. This is the unity of the higher 
powers, regarded from the standpoint of their activity. It is 
adorned and possessed supernaturally by the three theological 
virtues. The third unity is the unity of the higher forces in 
the spirit, above all sensibility. 

Every creature in its essence, its life and preservation, depends wholly 
on this unity: to separate from God, in this respect, would be for it to 
plunge into nothingness. ... This unity is essential in us by nature, whether 
we be righteous or sinners. But it can make us neither holy nor happy 
without our co-operation. It is the unity from which we came as created 
beings, whilst remaining there in our essence, and we return to it by 


way of charity. ... This is a natural kingdom of God, and the term of 
all the processes of the soul.1 


2. Such was man, in his eternal essence. Within the bosom 
of the blessed light, he was in God. The gifts and forces just 
mentioned existed in him but virtually; for, united to God, 
he had no reason for setting his powers to work. The latter 
were to function only in order to realise a new unity (moghe- 
like entcheit) in case the original unity should be broken. 

Here we come to the second act of the divine drama: 
the fall or decline of the soul. 


$ 1. The Fall 


We are made aware of the loss of our pristine nobility 
by a sense of uneasiness. Here below we dream of realisations 
which remain unfulfilled. We conceive of beauty and per- 
fection, but our passions prevent us from attaining thereto. 
We feel confined in every way, and the discrepancy between 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book II, chapter ii. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 175 


our mutilated lives and our desire for expansion is the source 
of endless suffering. Our homeland is elsewhere and, until 
we return to it, what we call happiness will be no more 
than the shadow of happiness. And so there has been a 
catastrophe between our sojourn in our divine homeland 
and our existence on earth. 

What has been the nature of this catastrophe? There is 
not a philosopher of old who has not attempted to picture it. 
Plato’s myths tell us of the journeyings of the soul above the 
celestial vault, and its fall to earth, with broken wings 
(rrepoppvjoaca), because it can no longer remain in the 
heavens. Plotinus shows us the soul fascinated by its image 
reflected in the bodies from below, and, in longing desire, 
springing forward towards this image and falling into the 
world of sense With variations in detail, the Gnostics 
describe the soul as floundering in matter. Now, as in the 
myth of Sophia, wholly imbued with Biblicism, the soul 
renders itself guilty of the charge of inquisitiveness in wishing 
to discover the secret of Deity; then again, as in Valentinus, 
it is robbed, by the framers of the Cosmos, of the divine 
element surreptitiously introduced into its constitution by 
God. The Pseudo-Dionysius translates in a Christian form 
the Neoplatonist conception as he received it from Proclus. 
The element common to all these conceptions is the longing 
for the divine which tortures the human soul here below, and 
gives inimitable emphasis to the inspirations of Plotinus.? 

It is the same with Ruysbroeck: man, lost in a world of 
darkness ruled by suffering and corruption, may be com- 
pared to an exile. “ Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence 
we come, where we are, and whither we are going. We come 
from God, and we are in exile; it is because our potency 
of affection ever tends towards God that we are aware of 
this state of exile.” 5 


It happens that man falls into a kind of languor and impatient desire 
to be set free from the prison of his body. Then tears often gush forth and 


1 Enneads, IV. 3, 12; 3, 17. 3 Jbid., I. i. 6. 
3 The Kingdom, chapter xviii. 


\ 


176 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


burning desires are born. Then, carrying his gaze back to this earth, 
the poor man sees in what an exile he is imprisoned, without the possibility 
of escape. And he sheds tears of impatience and of yearning for home. 


Ruysbroeck looks upon the Fall as the consequence of a 
spontaneous initiative on the part of the soul, the result of a 
choice made possible and obligatory by the gift of freedom of 
will. Man can choose: herein lies his greatness. He is forced 
to choose: herein lies his servitude. He has chosen ill-fortune: 
herein lies his guilt. But what were the terms in question? 
On the one hand the soul could choose to remain in unity. 
On the other hand it could separate from the universal soul 
and live an individual life. Here Ruysbroeck is clearly in- 
fluenced by the Plotinian conception.? He invests it, however, 
with images found in the Biblical account of the Fall. God 
had conferred upon Adam all the supernatural gifts: im- 
mortality, immunity from suffering, and integrity, whereby 
the good will retained mastery over the inferior powers of 
the soul. These privileges Adam transmitted to all who, his 
offspring, should participate in human nature. He had only 
a single gift of his own: the gift of knowledge which he was 
unable to hand down to his descendants. 

Then came a cheat, the hellish foe who, filled with jealousy, deceived 
the woman, and the two of them deceived the man in whom was the whole 
of human nature. Thus did the foe, by his false counsels, ravish this nature, 
the spouse of God. And she was exiled to a foreign land, became poor and 
wretched, captive and oppressed beneath the yoke of her enemies... 3 

This miserable condition was transmitted, and became the 
lot of all mankind: Human nature fell by the sin of the first 
man, and the nature that was free became a dungeon and an 
exile, a blind alley in which all who are born go astray, for 
they are the children of disobedience.” * 

This state of separation is called sin. It is the soul’s con- 
sent to separation from the original unity. This acquiescence 
constitutes the whole of man’s guilt. As set forth, this doc- 
trine is not free from a certain Pelagianism. It amounts to 
the statement that there is no evil; evil is but separation 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xxiii. * Enneads, IV. 8, 3. 
3 The Spiritual Marriage, book I., prologue. 4 The Kingdom, chapter ii. 


PEE DOCTRINE OF RU YS BRO BOK: 172 


from good. Again, the soul in its fall retained all the possi- 
bilities of regaining the lost blessedness: “the nobility and 
freedom of its will; it knows what is called dying and living, 
what good and evil are. It loves good and hates evil; and so 
it returns to God and obtains his compassion.” 1 

Nevertheless all this involves a contradiction. Indeed, 
we no longer see the necessity of a redemption, the work of 
an agent external to man. Now, redemption by Christ holds 
an important place in the return of the soul to God. The 
contradiction is more formal than fundamental. For if, 
indeed, the return of man to God is the personal work of 
man, this return is possible only in a purified nature. The 
rôle of Christ consists in liberating the human soul, in per- 
mitting the expression of the potentialities slumbering therein. 
In this sense Ruysbroeck may say that man, after the Fall, 
lost nothing substantial that God had created in him, and 
the rôle of Christ remains primordial, being the very con- 
dition of the return to God. We will now examine this rôle 
which is to make possible the third act of the divine drama 
of the soul. 


$ 2. The Work of Christ 


Man is the exclusive framer of his destiny: this is one 
of the ideas upon which Ruysbroeck most insists. No force 
whatsoever can exercise constraint upon him, neither God, 
nor devil, nor heavenly body. The conclusion has therefore 
been drawn that redemption held but a secondary place 
in Ruysbroeck’s system.? This is not the case. For while, 
in various forms, Ruysbroeck repeats his well-known formula: 
vous étes saints comme vous le voulez, a close study of our 
mystic proves that, in his mind, the will is exercised towards 
God only under the influence of grace. Left in its natural 
state the soul can but hate evil and desire grace, without 
being able to sanctify itself. Grace, ie. this liberating in- 
fluence, is the work of Christ. It annihilates the consequences 


1The Twelve Beguines, chapter xxxiv. 
? Altmeyer, Les Précurseurs de la Réforme, t. I. p. 114. 


178 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


of the Fall, but it does not realise union, 1.e. a return to 
original purity. 

As regards the personality of Christ, Ruysbroeck some- 
times clearly departs from traditional teaching. Humanity 
as understood by the Word is a complete humanity, made up 
of human flesh and a rational soul. Both natures, divine and 
human, exist in Jesus without confusion or division, each 
nature retaining its properties and acting in accordance with 
them. Jesus, gua historical person, was not born of the 
Father by nature: he acquired divine filiation only through 
his union with the Word. This doctrine recalls to mind the 
heresy of Theodosius of Mopsuestia and of Nestorius as to 
the two natures: between them no mingling or combination 
whatsoever (kpäous, cbyxvois). Christ is &rhoës Ty puoe.l Now 
what does Ruysbroeck say? 


His humiliations have not caused him to decline and fall, for he still 
remains what he was whilst assuming what he was not. He remains God 
in becoming man, in order that man may become God? He has put on our 
humanity, as a king does the raiment of his familiars and his servants; 
so that we with him have assumed the same garment, which is human 
nature. But at the same time . . . he gave to his soul and body, born of 
the all-pure Virgin Mary, the royal robe of divine personality. 

The Son of God [Ruysbroeck says again] has a soul created from 
nothing, i.e. emanated; also a body formed of the pure blood of the Virgin 
Mary. Soul and body are so much his and so well united that he is at once 
Son of God and Son of Mary, God and man in a single person. And as soul 
and body form but one man, so the Son of God and the Son of Mary are 
but one and the same living Christ, God and Lord of heaven and earth; 
for his holy soul is animated or inspirited by the wisdom of God. Still, it 
is not God, nor is it of divine nature, for God does not become creature. 
But the two natures remaining distinct are united in a single divine person: 
our dear Lord Jesus.4 


Ruysbroeck thus comes to see in Christ not God’s own son 
but his adoptive son; i.e. he establishes duality of persons. 
By his divine nature and as Word, Christ is natural son of 


1 See L. Fendt, Die Christologie des Nestorius (Kempten, 1910). 

*This declaration recalls almost literally the phrase of Saint Augustine: 
‘Homo propter nos factus, qui nos homines fecit; et assumens hominem Deus 
ut homines faceret deos.”” Sermo CCCXLIV. 

8 The Mirror, chapter viii. Cf. The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapters ii., iii.; 
The Kingdom, chapter ii. 

4 The Mirror, chapter xix. 


THE DOCTRINE OF -RUYSBROECK: ) 179 


God; this he is proprietate atque substantia; but by his human 
nature he is son of God non natura sed gratia atque electione. 
“The Holy Spirit dwelt in his soul and in his human nature 
with all his gifts; he it is that made him rich and generous, 
lavish of himself towards all.” 1 This characteristic passage 
is clearly adoptionist, and others that express heterodox 
conceptions might be quoted. Passages might also be found 
to contradict them and bring Ruysbroeck back to the tradi- 
tional point of view: 

The humanity of Our Lord has indeed no substance of itself, for it is 
not its own personality as in all other men; but the Son of God is its hypo- 
stasis and its form (hare onderstant ende hare forme). Thus it is uniform with 


God (eenformich) and the hypostatic union confers on it wisdom and 
power, above everything that is inferior to God.? 


And so it is not possible to give a coherent account of the 
Christology of our author. Shall we find greater cohesion in 
his soteriology? 

At the outset Ruysbroeck admits that Christ voluntarily 
assumed the condition of humanity.’ But at the same time, 
Christ, on coming down to earth, obeys a necessity of nature, 
implied in the theory of emanations.* More frequently 
he is the delegate, the proxy of God moved to pity by the 
wretched condition of mankind: “When God judged that 
the time had come, moved with pity at the suffering of his 
beloved, he sent his only Son to the kingdom of earth, into a 
richly-adorned palace and a glorious temple, by which I mean 
the body of the Virgin Mary.” ® 

He is the channel whereby the goodness of God can reach 
down to us. 

The work of Christ is interpreted in different ways. The 
divergencies, however, affect only the details. At bottom we 
have to deal with a liberation of human nature, subjected to 
evil. “Christ has worked and fought like a valiant champion 
against our enemy; he has broken down the prison and won 

1 Jbid., chapter xx. * Ibid. 
3 The Seven Cloisters, chapter 1. 


4 The Book of Supreme Truth, chapter x. 
> The Spiritual Marriage, book I., prologue. 


180 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the victory, by his own death destroying our death. His 
blood has redeemed us.” 1 

Ruysbroeck did not state who should benefit by the ran- 
som paid: now it is the devil, now it is God. In other places 
the idea of a ransom disappears, and the death of the Saviour 
is no more than the victory won in the fight for which man 
was the stakes. To profit by the merits that this death won, 
it is necessary to adhere personally to this work of love alone, 
“to put on a new life... renounce the devil and his service, 
and believe in Christ.? The sinner must meet God in contrition 
and a free return to him, with the firm intention henceforth 
of serving him always and never sinning again.” ° 

Those who do not decide upon this free return place 
themselves outside of divine pity. Frequently will the oppor- 
tunity to repent be offered to them. If they finally reject 
this opportunity, they will condemn themselves to hell. 
Among the six categories of evil men Ruysbroeck distin- 
guishes two for whom there is no remission: the first is that 
of those Christians who have despised the death of Christ 
and his sacraments; the second comprises infidels, pagans or 
Jews, who are unable to benefit by the death of Christ.* 

This doctrine of perdition for a portion of mankind evi- 
dently seems to contradict the ensemble of Ruysbroeck’s 
system. We have seen, indeed, that the human race is in- 
divisible. On the other hand, evil cannot be eternal, for it 
does not exist substantially. Ruysbroeck solves the question 
in his eschatology. The wicked will not be annihilated, but 
“by means of fire, God will renew their elements in clearness 
and will make them subtle, giving them a more beautiful 
form than they had before. For these elements have been 
sullied by sin and must be purified by fire.” 5 

To return to the work of Christ. A thrill passes through 
the frame of man as he contemplates the Saviour. On that 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I., prologue; The Seven Cloisters, chapter xxi. 
2 The Kingdom, chapter ii. 

3 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xxv. 

# Jbid., book I. chapter x.; The Kingdom, chapters vii.—xii. 

° The Kingdom, chapter xxxvii. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 181 


divine countenance he has recognised the reflection of his 
origin. He becomes exalted at the recollection. His life now 
seems to him dull and despicable. He turns aside therefrom 
in conversion, fortifies his will by the practice of the sacra- 
ments. And now a force unknown works within him. “Man 
is so severely stricken that he becomes attentive, continues 
in dread, and considers within himself.” ! He is ready to 
undertake the long journey. 


3. Here really begins the third act of the divine drama: 
the return to unity. “The pilgrim takes his staff and sings, 
as he smiles upon his homeland.” 


§ 1. The Three Paths 


Everything tends inevitably to return to its origin. The 
physical world is a vast parable illustrating this law: dew 
evaporates and condenses into rain; the tree draws from the 
juices of the earth the sap circulating through its foliage, 
and when the leaves fall they become soil once more; the 
corporeal nature of man is of mineral origin and, on the 
dissolution of the body, its elements return to the crucible 
from which they have been drawn. Now, the laws that 
govern the material world are those that control the spiritual: 
man’s eternal destiny is to aspire after God. 

The whole of religion then consists in recognising God 
as our first origin and our final end, in returning to him in a 
way conformable with his will. It is perfectly represented by 
a ring, an unbroken circle without either starting-point or 
finishing-point.? 

But this search after God is subject to definite rules, 
ignorance or neglect of which would lead to perversions of 
the faith, such as the Quietist heresies and the sect of the 
Free Spirit. Apart from the sacraments, which visibly express 

1 The Spivitual Marriage, book I. chapter i. 

* The Sparkling Stone is also entitled dat hantvingherlijn, the ring, symbol 


of the return of the soul to unity. Surius dropped this second title. 
F 


182 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the spiritual laws of our religious progress, the mystical life 
is prefigured in us by the three unities, where it is seen how 
the nature within us can unite with the supernatural: the 
inferior corporeal unity, which expresses itself in the practice 
of external works; the spiritual unity, which is shown in the 
theological virtues and the imitation of Jesus Christ; the 
sublime unity, which causes us to find rest in God above 
all intention. 

To this threefold unity corresponds a threefold path, 
which will progressively lead us to the desired union. Now 
the mystic life will be represented by a ladder; then again 
by the forest tree: the tree grows both in height and in depth; 
through its foliage it assimilates the virtue of the air, through 
its roots it extracts the juices of the earth. Its trunk and 
limbs strengthen and expand in concentric circles, while 
the extreme branches, ever more slender, blend with the sky. 
Nevertheless, no one will say that the tree has become sky; 
or the sky tree. Likewise, through the mystic life, man unites 
with God, without becoming God or without God becoming man. 

Ruysbroeck deals with this vast subject in all his books, 
though with variations corresponding to the progressive 
precision of his thought. And so, under the risk of giving an 
imperfect sketch of his ideas, we must take into account the 
successive improvements and adornments of his thought, 
and regard the later treatises as the basis of our exposition. 
It is for this reason that we choose The Seven Degrees as our 
starting-point. Therein we find the original form of Ruys- 
broeck’s thought, as showing itself in The Spiritual Marriage, 
along with fresh developments. 

On the road which man has to traverse in attaining to 
perfection Ruysbroeck distinguishes seven stages: (1.) the 
identification of our will with the divine will; (1.) voluntary 
poverty; (iil.) purity of soul and chastity of body; (iv.) the 
intimate consciousness of our own baseness; (v.) delight in 
God alone; (vi.) a clear intuition into purity of thought; 
(vii.) not-knowing in limitless repose. 

These divisions enter into the threefold scheme drawn 


TLEs DOCGCTRINEVOP YRUYSEROECK, 1:33 


up by the Pseudo-Dionysius: xéapois, potirpos, re\ewis, OF 
puortixn evoors. It is the scheme adopted by Ruysbroeck in The 
Spiritual Marriage, where he speaks of the three lives: 
the active or beginning life (beghinnende, werkende leven); 
the interior life (ynnighe, verhavene, begheerlike leven); the 
contemplative life (godscouwende, overweselike leven). 


§ 2. The Active Life 


In this category are “the virtuous men of good-will who, 
masters of themselves, are incessantly dying to sin.” 1 The 
beginning of this life is marked by a moral act, conversion, 
essentially a work of the will though rendered easy by an 
interior predisposition whose agent is the Holy Spirit. We 
are here dealing with predisposing grace, upon which Ruys- 
broeck dwells at length. 

This grace is offered to all, but is not implanted in all. 
It finds exercise either in tests and trials or in examples, 
sermons, religious meditation. Hence is born a natural 
affliction for sin and a natural good-will, perfect contrition 
and purification of conscience. These processes do not yet 
constitute more than the preliminaries of the active life. 
Conversion is but a starting-point, for sin, although blotted 
out, leaves behind something impure which allures to other 
faults: “The holy life is warfare which can be maintained 
only by fighting.” ? This fighting is called self-discipline or 
self-mastery: ‘‘ Keep possession of yourselves and never let 
go your own soul.” ? 

In this struggle we must consider our relations with 
ourselves, with our neighbour and with God, relations ex- 
pressed by the three virtues: charity, justice and humility. 
‘Of themselves alone, these virtues bear the whole weight 
of the edifice,” * and correspond to the three persons of the 
divine unity. 

1 The Mirror, chapter i. 
2 The Seven Degrees, chapter iv.; The Mirror, chapter ii. 


° The Mirror, chapter ii.; The Seven Cloisters, chapter xi. 
* The Spiritual Marriage, book I, chapter xi. 


184 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
The whole moral philosophy of Ruysbroeck is based on 


regarding the powers of the soul as conformable with the 
divine hypostases. The active life consists above all in com- 
bating the effects of sin—dimness of intellect, weakness of 
will, the three Johannine concupiscences—by the opposite 
virtues. He makes the study of these virtues an opportunity 
for drawing vivid psychological representations; he is more 
intent on describing the good that ought to be than the evil 
that is. We cannot stop to analyse all the virtues that form 
part of Ruysbroeck’s system, but simply note the order in 
which they should follow one another in the soul struggling 
for self-conquest. 

Obedience, humility and resignation of will correspond 
to the first gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of fear, and con- 
stitute the first step on the spiritual ladder. The next step, 
corresponding to the gift of piety, introduces man to the 
practice of gentleness, compassion and liberality. Lastly, 
the practice of zeal, sobriety and purity raises man to the 
third and last step in the active life, where he places himself 
under the influence of the third gift of the Spirit: the gift of 
science or of true self-knowledge. Thus will man rule his own 
soul as a kingdom. 

Although the active life is not yet, strictly speaking, the 
mystic life, it enables man to meet God, to have a fore- 
taste of the longed-for union, “for every virtuous act pre- 
supposes a meeting with God.” 1 This is what Ruysbroeck 
calls the mediate union. 

This is what I say concerning the first state of union: all good people 
are united to God by an intermediary. This intermediary consists of divine 
grace and the sacraments, the theological virtues, and a virtuous life in 
conformity with God’s commandments. All this implies death to sin and 
the world, to all the disorderly appetites of nature.? 

As we see, the mystical life is far from being regarded 
by him as a dreamland into which material necessities and 
moral struggles disappear beneath the light of interior 
illumination. Other mystics may lose foothold, take no 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xxv. 
* The Book of Supreme Truth, chapters i., iii, 


™~ 


Le WOCTRINE OE ARTU Me BA OR CK 18s 


account of human weakness; our philosopher retains close 
contact with life. Nowhere does Ruysbroeck set forth the 
spiritual life as an easy path. He dwells on the eclipse of 
inspiration, on sudden darkness, on dull, depressing days. 


When you least expect it, God will hide and withdraw his hand; 
between himself and you he will place darkness through which you will 
be able to see nothing. Then will you complain, crying and moaning like 
a pauper. ... Though God has disappeared from your sight, you are not 
hidden from him.! 


Ruysbroeck is fond of picturing life as a garden which 
it is incumbent upon man to cultivate. God willed that, along 
with the delectable fruits of virtue, there should also grow 
the flower of joy, made for the delight both of eye and of 
heart. He points to this joy as existing not in glorious adven- 
tures and great riches, but in the humblest departments of 
daily life. Not a single day but brings its offering of beauty. 
How lovingly he sheds new lustre upon little duties and 
occupations, “the knowledge and supernatural wisdom” of 
seeing God beneath the most modest and uncouth aspect! 
Long before Luther he repeats that one can serve God in 
scullery, kitchen or sick-room, as well as in the sanctuary! 
“Go to your work,” he advises some monks, “and if you are 
so busy that you can neither listen to mass nor receive the 
Sacrament, be not displeased thereat, for God prefers obedi- 
ence before sacrifice.” ? 

No one has insisted more strongly than Ruysbroeck on 
the great dignity of work, which he recommends one to under- 
take most conscientiously. And religious life, so greatly 
menaced by the spirit of routine, is work. “When you read, 
whether in chant or in prayer, understand what you say; 
attend to the meaning of the words and to the ideas they 
express.” # Do not force inspiration, nor cultivate the 
ambition to climb the summits at a bound: stage by stage 
proceed along the road that is to bring you to God. They are 
mad who think they can arrive more speedily by rushing 


1 The Mirror, chapter ii. ? The Seven Cloisters, chapter v. 
8 The Mirror, chapter ii. 


186 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


along at full speed. Life is an art that must be learned in 
detail; nothing is so trifling or unimportant as not to affect 
the condition of the soul. And so our excellent prior refuses 
to split up mankind into two orders of sanctity—the lower 
sanctity of the lay people and the higher sanctity of the 
monks: “We make profession to God in the order of true sanctity, 
whatever raiment we wear or in whatever state we may be.” } 

This is a new expression of life, but the words are eternally 
true. Religion is more than morality; still, it cannot be based 
upon anything less than morality. The “good life” or the 
“active life” is the mother earth in which faith is rooted. 
This latter, like a tree, fades away and dies unless it be 
supplied with sap by the living juices slowly elaborated in 
the depths of human consciousness. Is it not worth while, 
even in these days, to learn this lesson and ponder deeply 
over it? 

In Lhe Sparkling Stone Ruysbroeck describes—by per- 
sonifying them—the various stages of the spiritual life. 
From Saint Bernard he borrows the image of the hirelings, 
of the faithful servants, of the friends and sons of God.? 
The hireling represents man before his conversion, serving 
God from fear or from personal interest. The faithful servant 
is attached to God; he knows and serves him, but he has not 
yet entered into a state of intimacy with him; this privilege 
is reserved for secret friends. With these we enter the 
second sphere of the spiritual life: the interior life. 


§ 3. The Interior Life 


There are to be found souls who, going beyond the mere practice of 
virtues, discover within themselves and recognise a life that is truly living, 
wherein are united the created and the uncreated, God and the creature.3 

But this life is greatly threatened by various dangers 
which Ruysbroeck compares to diseases, and it is profitable 
to take warning from them. 

1 The Seven Cloisters, chapter xiii. 


* St. Bernard, On the Love of God, chapter xii.; Sermones de diversis, sermo iii. 
® The Mirror, chapter xvii. 


THE, DOCTRINE: OF (RUYSBROECK 187 


At the autumnal equinox . . . the temperature lowers. At this period 
those who are not careful run the risk of incurring harmful humours, which 
load the stomach and cause maladies and indispositions of various kinds. 
... In the same way, when those who, being of good will, have tasted some- 
what of God, afterwards decline and fall away from God and truth, they 
begin to languish. . . . Some would gladly welcome divine consolation 
if it could be obtained without effort . . . they regard as indispensable all 
that they can supply to their body in the way of comfort or ease. When 
man thus condescends to nature and indiscreetly pursues the satisfaction 
of his own body, then this satisfaction corresponds to the harmful humours 
... his heart is disturbed therepy and he loses all appetite and taste for 
good food, i.e. for all the virtues. 


There is also a spiritual analogy to dropsy. 


Such is the greed for earthly possessions, so that, the more one receives, 
the more one desires; for water accumulates, and the hody—i.e. the appetites 
and desires—becomes enormous without any diminution of thirst.* 


Finally there is a third evil, consisting of four kinds of 
fever: multiplicity of affections, inconstancy, spiritual blind- 
ness and habitual negligence. 

Let man then put on armour as does a knight before 
entering upon this difficult path. Here too his best help will 
be a strong will, without which divine grace is unable to 
work. And none enters the interior life unless entreated by 
grace. 

Indeed, the grace of God within the soul may be compared to a candle 
in a lighthouse or glass globe, for it illumines and penetrates with its rays 


the crystal, i.e. the just man. But it reveals itself only on condition that he, 
the just man, be attentive to perceive it.3 


This true vigil must then precede the consecration of 
the knight of the interior life. Only afterwards, from being a 
faithful servant, will he be promoted to the rank of a 
secret friend. 

During this lonely vigil he must first strip himself of all 
representations apart from God. He must possess nothing 
ardently, nor bind himself to anyone by natural inclination, 
for all attachments and affections that do not tend solely 
to the honour of God burden the heart of man.‘ Then, too, 


1 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter xxx. 
? [bid., book I. chapter xxxi. 

* Jbid., book IT. chapter iv. 

4 The Sparkling Stone, chapter ii. 


188 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


he must be born to that interior freedom which consists 
a À ; } " 

in being able to raise one’s thoughts to God without 
images or shackles in all inner exercises: thanksgiving, 
praise, worship, devout prayers and intimate affections.” 
In brief, he must feel truly united to God in spirit, having 
free access to him and in all things considering nothing but 
divine honour. 

When these conditions are satisfied he truly enters into 
the interior life. There he enjoys the full radiance of Christ, 
the eternal sun. 

The sun shining upon the high-lands,! in the centre, over against the 
mountains, gives birth to an early summer which produces much good 
fruit and potent wine, and fills the earth with joy. Whereas in the low- 
lands, no doubt the sun’s rays also shine forth, but the country is colder 


and the warmth less great. Good fruit may grow there in considerable 
quantity, but wine is rare? 


\ 
L 2 L e e e 


(i.) To express how the Christ-illumination gradually 
enters the soul, first in its inferior and then in its superior 
powers, and finally in its very essence, Ruysbroeck pursues 
his analogy with the sun, in its conjunction with the various 
signs of the Zodiac. 

(a) The sun rises in the east and in a moment floods the 
world with warmth and light. Thus do we feel the interior 
impulsion of the divine spirit illuminating the inferior part 
of man, i.e. his heart. The warmth of this glow and radiance 
produces unity of heart or inner peace, calm, the conscious- 
ness of divine love, the devotion whereby “there blossoms 
in body and soul honour and reverence before God and 
before all men,” gratitude, accompanied by a sense of our 
impotence to apprehend fully the divine goodness and 
bounty, and of the tardiness of our growth in grace. The 
interior fire and ardour of the Holy Spirit works within us 
like the flame which “by its power raises water to boiling- 
point: that is the utmost it can do. Then the water is set 

1 Overlant, the Brabantine tableland, in opposition to the nederlant, the 


Netherlands. 
® The Spiritual Marriage, book II. chapter viii. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 189 


moving, and descends again to the bottom of the vessel, when 
it is driven up afresh by the same powerful action of the fire ?; 
or, again, like the sun’s heat, “which attracts the moisture 
of the earth through the roots and trunk of the tree right up 
to the branches, thus bringing into birth leaves, flowers 
and fruit.” 


(b) When the sun rises high in the heavens and enters the sign of the 
Twins, in the middle of May, it has twofold power. . . . If at the same 
time the planets that govern nature appear in the order required by the 
season, the sun sheds his beams over the earth and draws the moisture 
into the air. Hence dew and rain, the growth and increase of fruit. 


Likewise, under the influence of the Spirit, there is shed 
abroad “‘a gentle rain of new interior comforts and a heavenly 
dew of divine sweetness.” This is that inner joy, that spiritual 
transport, which expresses itself in various ecstatic mani- 
festations. It is “the May of the interior life,” when the 
things to be dreaded are the dim mists and the hoar-frost of 
pride, the “desire to find repose in interior consolation.” 
Let man then imitate the prudent bee: it wanders from 
flower to flower without resting on any one of them; “it 
gathers honey and wax, i.e. that which is sweet and that which 
will give brightness, and then it returns to the unit, the 
swarm, in order that its labour may bear fruit.” 

(c) When the sun reaches its highest point in the sky 
it enters the sign of the Crab. It is then, at the point of 
return, that the sun is hottest; it draws away the moisture 
of the earth, which now becomes dry, and fruits become ripe. 
Likewise Christ, at the highest stage of our affections, attracts 
to and concentrates upon himself all our powers. The heart 
then expands with joy and desire, “the fruit of the virtues 
ripens.” This languor and impatience for love increase still 
more, for the sun enters the sign of the Lion; this is the 
season of storms and soothing rain, reminiscent of transports 
and visions, of tears of ecstasy: “sometimes God arouses 
in the mind a swift flash, something like lightning in the sky. 
It is a brief stream of light, of dazzling clearness. In an 
instant the mind is raised superior to itself; but immediately 


190 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the light is no longer, and man returns to himself.” These 
effects, the prudent Ruysbroeck is careful to add, may come 
from Satan as well as from God, “and so one can trust in 
them only in so far as they agree with truth and the Holy 
Scriptures, no more.” Here is the greatest peril of this canicular 
state: similarly, 

during great heat there sometimes falls a certain honey-dew, falsely 
sweet, that taints and even contaminates the fruit; this happens in parti- 


cular at noon when the sun is shining in all his brightness; and we see 
great drops that can scarcely be distinguished from rain. 


The other danger is debility of the body through excess of 
rapture. Let man then be prudent and take example from 
the ant, “which does not pursue various paths, but goes 
straight along the same way, and after the requisite lapse of 
time becomes capable of flying.” 

(d) Lastly, the sun, in its decline, enters the sign of the 
Virgin, “which is so called because then the season, like a 
virgin, produces no fruit.” The crops are gathered into barns, 
and in this autumn “man resembles one who has unlearnt 
everything, who has lost his knowledge, and the fruit of his 
pains.” This destitute state gives birth to the dread of falling, 
to semi-mistrust. Let man then have confidence in God, glad 
that he can suffer somewhat in his honour. Meanwhile the 
sun has entered the sign of the Scales. Days and nights are 
of equal duration. Similarly, we have Christ confronted with 
forsaken man: “‘Whether he give this man sweetness or 
bitterness, dark or light, to restore the balance: all things 
are the same to him, with the exception of sin, which should 
be wholly banned.” 

Such is the first stage of the interior life, that which 
realises the unity of the lower or corporeal powers of the soul. 
The following stage should lead to unity of the higher powers, 
those of the sprrit. 

(ii.) In this new state, divine grace is installed in man 
as its abode, like a living spring. This spring divides into 
three streams which fertilise each of the three higher powers 
of the soul. 


THE DOCTRINE, OF RUMSBROECK. r91 


First there is simplicity (pure eenvoldicheit), which raises 
the spirit above all cares or preoccupations, above all in- 
stability of thought. Then there is spiritual illumination 
(gheestelike claerheit), which enlightens the intellect and 
enables it to contemplate God in his perfection and his 
incomprehensible nature, and to rise to the mystery of 
the Trinity. The third stream is that of inspired ardour 
(tnghegheeste bitte), which enflames the will and enriches 
the soul with great possessions. 

The man aflame with this ardour feels compelled to 
respond to these renewed tokens of divine love. However 
sweet be the solitary delight in his spiritual possessions, he 
must come out of himself. He therefore betakes himself to 
God and all the saints: “he traverses all choirs, all hier- 
archies, all glorified beings; he considers how God dwells in 
each according to his nobility.” Then he turns to the sinners, 
and presents them before God with pitying, generous heart. 
His eyes again fall upon the souls in purgatory, having regard 
to their misery and to their hopes. Lastly, returning to him- 
self, he unites with all men of good will, experiencing the 
union and harmony which love creates between them, and 
coming as a mediator and peace-bringer. 

(ii.) But divine grace must penetrate even farther into the 
depths, and touch the very essence of the soul. The preceding 
stage was compared to the flow of a living spring; here the 
analogy bears rather upon the very vein from which the spring 
gushes to the surface, “for in this domain none other works 
than God alone in his freely-given goodness.” Light ineffable, 
above all imagination, and in whose presence we are by 
nature blind, for “all intelligences with their created light 
are like the eyes of the bat before the brightness of the 
sun.” Once the soul has apprehended this supernatural 
light, it acquires an unappeasable hunger, a devouring greed 
(mengherael, bulimia, insatiable appetite). In this hunger and 
thirst after love, 


this man is continually abandoning all action, spending and annihilat- 
ing himself in love; for his hunger and thirst is after God. . . . He lives 


192 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and yet dies, and in dying lives again. . . . He bears great labour of love, 
for he has caught a glimpse of his rest. He is a pilgrim, and he now per- 
ceives his homeland. He is a combatant in love for victory, and he sees 
the shining of his crown. 


In this impetuous condition the spirit of God strives 
with the spirit of man (minnenstrijt), each wishing to possess 


his beloved, 


and the mutual contact incessantly renewed raises up a fresh tempest 
of love. The fire of love leaps forth like sparks of molten metal or the 
flaming lights of heaven. The flash descends right into the powers of the 
sense-world, and all that lives in man tends to reach up to union, where 
the love contact arises. 


Thus do the deeps of life enable the soul to realise a closer 
union than that by an intermediary: this is 1mmediate union, 
with which is linked the prayer of Christ: “that the love 
wherewith thou hast loved me may be im them, and I im 
them ” (John xvii. 26). 

To define this union, Ruysbroeck proceeds by way of 
comparison: 

You know how the air is bathed in the light and heat of the sun, and 
how iron is so permeated with fire that it forms one with it, burning and 
illuminating like fire itself. . . . Nevertheless each element retains its own 
distinctive nature; fire does not become iron any more than iron becomes 
fire. But the union takes place without intermediary since iron is interiorly 
in fire and fire in iron, as air is in sunlight and sunlight in air. 

Similarly in immediate union, 


intellect, raised aloft and stripped of all imagination, is permeated with 
eternal brightness as the air is permeated with the sun; w7ll, raised aloft 
and unadorned, is transformed and imbued with unfathomable love, as 
iron is permeated throughout by fire. Memory, raised aloft and unadorned, 
feels itself caught up in an unfathomable absence of all mental imagery. 
And so beyond reason, the image created is united in threefold fashion 
to its eternal type... but the creature does not become God. 


§ 4. The Contemplative Life 


In the contemplative life, union without distinction or 
difference is consummated. In it is realised the prayer of 
Christ: “that they may be one, even as we, the Father and I, 
are one”’ (John xvii. 22). 


Few men can attain thereto [says Ruysbroeck], both because of their 
own unfitness and by reason of the mystery of the illumination in which 


LEY DOCTRINELOF /RUYSBROECK 107 


contemplation takes place. . . . No one could succeed by profundity of 
learning or any kind of perspicacity, nor by any religious exercise; but he 
whom God would unite with his spirit and himself enlighten is alone 
capable of this contemplation, and none other. 

This privileged individual is called the mystical or hidden 
son of God. The secret friends cannot rise to these mystical 
heights, for even in union they ever retain a certain distinctive 
spirit of their own. 


They remain ignorant of and unattracted by the simple transition to 
plainness and absence of mode, so that the highest interior life is always 
an impediment of reasons and modes. ... Resolved to live always in the 
service of God and to please him eternally, they are not yet willing to die 
in God and live a uniform life with God. 

The hidden sons, on the other hand, to whom applies the 
saying of Saint Paul: “‘ ye are dead, and your life is hid with 
Christ in God” (Col. iii. 3), have immolated themselves. This 
is a second spiritual death, the first being death to sin in 


order to be born to a virtuous life. 


In our progress towards God, by the practice of the virtues, God 
dwells in us, but in the death of ourselves and of all things, it is we who 
dwell in him. 

Transcending reason, we should enter into God by faith, and then 
remain there, simple and unadorned. . . . Then, in our spirit, released from 
all activity, we receive the incomprehensible brightness . . . which is 
nothing else than endless vision and contemplation. In this simple glance 
we are with God one single life, one single spirit; and this is what I call 
a contemplative life. 


But how is this to be explained? For it supersedes all 
reason and understanding, and is above all creation. Only 
those know it who have experienced it. Only by analogy can 
one speak of immersion in God: “it is like rivers that inces- 
santly pour themselves into the sea, for that is their own 
place” (haer eighen stat). 

What are the conditions for attaining to this blessed 
state? 

Ruysbroeck is very obscure in dealing with these delicate 
points. The six conditions mentioned in The Sparkling 
Stone} evidently refer to a state of simplification and interior 
void, as realised by mystics of all ages, both yogis of India 

1 Chapter xiii. See also chapter iii., where these conditions are reduced to three. 


194 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and shamans of Australia, as well as by Plotinus,! who, says 
Porphyry, entered into a state of ecstasy four times whilst 
he was living with him.? It is the abolition of all thought, all 
feeling, the absolute fixity of the mind upon itself, the 
suppression of all individual life? In this utter passivity 
man no longer exists. [t is no longer man who lives in God, 
it is God who lives in man. And so Ruysbroeck says that in 
this state God reflects himself, imprints himself as an eternal 
seal. In mystic union the Trinity finds its perfect expression 
in its threefold character: repose, flow and ebb. 

For in us the Father gives himself in the Son and the Son in the Father, 
in eternal delight and loving embrace, and this is hourly repeated in the 
bonds of love. Just as indeed the Father ever contemplates anew all things 


in the begetting of his Son, so all things are loved anew by Father and Son 
in the emanation of the Holy Spirit.4 


Nevertheless, although ecstasy transcends time, it is 
possible to discern therein three successive states. At the 
beginning it is a knowing. 

From the Father’s face emanates a simple light, which illumines this 
soul, raised above senses, above images, above reason and without reason, 
in the supreme purity of the spirit. In this light, which is called the corus- 
cation of God, God perceives himself simply, not according to distinctions 
or the mode of persons, but in the privation of his natures. . .. 

The act of knowing is followed by an act of Jove: from the 
face of divine charity descends a swift light, like a flash, 
into this open heart.” And the Spirit of the Lord speaks: 
“T am thine and thou art mine; I dwell in thee and thou 
livest in me.” This feeling of grace is followed by an outburst 
of grateful fervour on the part of the soul: “this man does 
not indeed know what has happened to him nor how he can 
continue to live, a state called jubilation . . . 1.e. heartfelt 
love, an ardent flame accompanied by devotion, gratitude 
and an everlasting reverence of God.” In the heat of jubi- 


1 Enneads, V1., book IX. chapter xi. 

* Life of Plotinus, chapter xxiii. 

’ The Pseudo-Dionysius has noted the threefold character of mystical experi- 
ence: passivity, obscurity, renunciation. Cf. Hugo Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius 
SERENE in s, Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus u. Mysterienwesen (1900), 


PP: 13 
4 The ‘Spiritual Marriage, book III. chapter vi. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 195 


lation, Ruysbroeck does not lose sight of the practical 
tendency of his doctrine. Even ecstasy must culminate in 
action .. . moral action. 

For this reason [he says] I offer a rough comparison to such as have 
never climbed this summit. Take a mirror curved like a basin, put in it 
dry and inflammable straws, and hold the mirror so as to catch the sun’s 
rays. These dry straws, by reason of the heat of the sun and the concavity 
of the mirror, will rapidly catch fire. So within thyself, if thou hast an open 
' heart, devoutly lifted up to God, the light of his pity, illumining this open 
soul, consumes all thy shortcomings in the fire of divine love.t 

This practical tendency of Ruysbroeck’s mysticism is 
certainly the best of correctives; it anticipates the conse- 
quences which the Quietists of his time were inevitably 
bound to draw from a doctrine in which, verbally at least, 
all distinction between God and man disappeared. We know 
that Ruysbroeck was aware of this danger, from the ex- 
planations he subsequently gave and the corrections he made 
in doubtful passages of his writings—such expressions as the 
following: “we shall be melted and liquefied, engulfed and 
immersed throughout eternity in divine glory,” or “spirits 
melt and become annihilated from delight in the essence of 
God, the superessence of all essence. There they escape from 
themselves and lose themselves in bottomless non-knowledge,” 
or again, “the spirit expands so widely to apprehend the 
Bridegroom when he appears, that it is transformed into the 
very immensity it knows,” remind one unmistakably of the 
most audacious assertions of the votaries of the Free Spirit. 
We also find that Ruysbroeck, at the end of his life, gives 
repeated warnings and remarks of the following nature: 
“Pay attention, I did not say that... . I again say that no 
creature can be or become so holy as to lose his state as a 
creature and become God. I do not wish anyone to mis- 
understand my words . . .” etc.; “The spirit of man does not 
become God by any means, but it is deiform.” 

Besides, it is not improbable that the thought of Ruys- 
broeck passed through two phases: that of The Spiritual 
Marriage, largely imbued with the spirit of pantheism, at 


1 The Twelve Beguines, chapter x. 


196 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


all events in expression, and that corresponding to the pub- 
lication of The Sparkling Stone and the other corrective 
treatises, in which practical tendencies were stronger than 
speculation. The Spiritual Marriage was written in Brussels, 
in the course of Ruysbroeck’s active ministry, and in all 
probability about the year 1335. The author had not yet 
seen the disastrous results about to be wrought on the 
people by the pantheists of the Free Spirit. 

Since that time it may be said that this sect always 

occupied his mind. Not one of his treatises but combats it, 
directly or indirectly. Certainly it was from reflecting on 
the quietism of the heretics that he assigned the place of 
honour to the practical value of the mystic life. This latter 
should not be its own aim and object. If we think so, 
we are mistaken [he says at the end of The Sparkling Stone}, for, 
in order to attain to God, we must have a heart that is free, a con- 
science at peace, a frank unveiled countenance devoid of artifice. Then 
only can we ascend from virtue to virtue, contemplate and enjoy God, 
and, as I have told you, become one with him. 
Elsewhere he places in the same category those who engage 
and lose themselves in works of every kind and those who keep 
aloof from practical life in order to find rest in contemplation: 
“those who, rejecting action, abandon themselves to interior 
idleness, are unable to understand these things.” 

Again, there is a law of.the spiritual world which forbids 
man to isolate himself in a state of contemplation. This is 
the law of aspir and of expir. In the contemplative life God 
aspires us to himself: when God draws us within we must be 
wholly his. But afterwards 
the Spirit of God expires us without, for the practice of love and good 
works . . . just as we breathe out the air within our bodies and breathe 
in new air, and therein consists our mortal life in nature. To enter, therefore, 
into inactive enjoyment, and then go out to practise good works, and 
remain ever united with the Spirit of God, is what I mean. 

Work, the moral life, is man’s very element. It is there 
that God looks for him, it is there that he brings him back, 
so that, in the mystic cycle, the practice of the virtues is 
both the starting- and the arrival-point. It is important to 


THER DOCTRINE’ OF RUYSBROECK 197 


note this essential aspect of the doctrine of Ruysbroeck. In 
this he is different from most mystics; if it were possible to 
make a rapprochement, the only name with which he could be 
compared would be that of Bernard de Clairvaux, from whom 
he assuredly received inspiration. 


Besides, supposing an impossibility, if the spiritual creature, as regards 
action, were reduced to a nonentity, becoming as devoid of activity as if 
it were not, it would deserve nothing. It would be neither more holy nor 
more happy than a stone or a piece of wood. 

And so, to enjoy and act constitutes the beatitude of Christ and of 
all the saints; it also constitutes the life of all just men. . . . Such logic 
will never disappear. 


This practical life, which Ruysbroeck distinguishes from 
active life, the first step in mystic development, he calls the 
common life (ghemeene leven)? The active life, inspired by 
grace, is essentially the work of the human will. The common 
life, on the other hand, depends on God alone. 


The man who, from these heights, is brought back to the world Be. God, 
bears with him a wealth of virtues. He seeks not his own good, but the 
honour of him who sends him. And so he is upright and true in all things. 
He is in possession of a rich and liberal property which, grounded in the 
wealth of God himself, should ever be distributed to all who need it, for 
its abundance flows from the living spring of the Holy Spirit that is in- 
exhaustible. This man is a living and spontaneous instrument used by God 
for the doing of his will. ... This is the common life, in which one is equally 
ready to contemplate and to act by engaging in both with like perfection. 


In another place Ruysbroeck says of this common life: 


Although living wholly in God and wholly in ourselves, we have yet 
but one single life. True, we feel in it both contradiction and duality, for 
poverty and wealth, hunger and satiety, activity and idleness are mutually 
opposed to each other. Nevertheless, it is here that we attain to our 
highest nobility. 


Thus it is in action that the mystic life reaches its cul- 
minating point. And, while on the borderland of pantheism, 
it is this which prevents Ruysbroeck from. wholly espousing 
the depersonalisation and the dissolution of the /. On the 
other hand, he means to be always and everywhere a faithful 


1St. Bernard, Im Cantica, sermo xxxiil. (Migne, Pair. lat., t. CXXXLIIL.). 

2 Cf. Auger, Sur une doctrine spéciale des mystiques du XIV® siècle en Belgique : 
Ruysbroech et la Vie commune, in Compte rendu du troisième congrès scientifique 
international des catholiques. Section des sciences religieuses, pp. 297-304. 


Q 


198 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and obedient son of the Church. His passionate mysticism is 
moulded after the model supplied to him by the Church and 
the Christian doctrine. The mystical system cannot therefore 
be separated from Ruysbroeck’s special ecclesiology: the 
two support and explain each other. 


Ill. Tue CuHurcH AND THE SACRAMENTS 


Ruysbroeck’s love for his Church did not prevent him 
from being very clear-sighted regarding the state of decline 
into which the institution had lapsed. We do not intend to 
reconsider the pitiable scene. True sons always love a mother, 
however wrinkled her brow or soiled her garb. Thus did 
Ruysbroeck love his fallen Church: tenderly for her great 
past, mournfully for her degraded present, and hopefully 
for ;the} future. He was not thinking of a mystical Zion, an 
ideal Church, but of an earthly foundation, divinely insti- 
tuted and invested with power as enduring as the world 


itself. 

The holy Church that cannot err instructs us by its teachings and its 
practice that have been in vogue ever since the first days of Christianity. 
... This Church is called apostolic, for the high prince Saint Peter and the 
other apostles founded and established it upon the rock Jesus Christ... . 
An order and a power give to them, and to their successors, the means of 
carrying out their functions to the last day. They will ordain bishops and 
priests in the name of the Lord, and in his name will give them the power 
they have received from God to exercise priestly functions throughout 
the world. The holy Church thus has its foundation in Christ, and Christ 
lives in it... and it shall remain, unchanged, in possession of its ministry 
to the last day.l 


As an instrument of the Holy Spirit, its judgment has all 
the force of law. Ruysbroeck, both for himself and for his 
writings, is the first to submit thereto in terms which permit 
of no restriction. At the end of his life he writes: “For all 
that I understand or feel, and for all that I have written, I 
submit to the judgment of the saints and of holy Church. 
For I wish to live and die in the Christian faith, and, by God’s 
grace, I desire to be a living member of holy Church.” ? 

1 The Mirror, chapter vii. * The Book of Supreme Truth, chapter xiv. 


THE DOCTRINE OF RUYSBROECK 199 


The commandments of the Church are the command- 
ments of God himself. Those who imagine they can dispense 
with them are froward and perverse, “for they think they 
have found and hold the why and wherefore of all the sacred 
scriptures . . . nevertheless they have lost God and all the 
ways that might lead to him, possessing no more devout 
fervour or holy practices than a dead beast.” These men, 
who trust in their own strength to approach God and scorn 
the intermediary of the sacraments, Ruysbroeck compares 
to the eagle, “an impure bird.” He is impure because he trusts 
to the power of his wings alone to rise ever higher, and has 
no pity for birds feebler than himself. Such are the votaries 
of the Free Spirit, 
who regard themselves as free and united to God without any intermediary, 
raised superior to all the practices of holy Church. . . . Detached from 


everything, they imagine they thus possess that for which the exercises 
and offices of holy Church are instituted and established. 


And so Ruysbroeck demands perfect obedience to the 
Church. 


None are therefore disobedient to God, none set themselves in opposi- 
tion to him, except those who transgress his commandments, for every- 
thing that is prescribed or forbidden by God in the Scriptures, the teachings 
of the Church, or the dictates of conscience, must be done or left undone 
under penalty of disobedience and of the loss of divine grace. 


In no man can the spirit of God either will, counsel or work 
things opposed to the teaching of the Church. Consequently 
obedience to the Church is one of the three qualities which 
make a man just and upright. 


The sacraments are the channels of the love of God, the 
visible form of invisible grace.! It is through them that Christ 
draws near to man. 


There is also another mode of approach for Christ, our bridegroom, 
which is daily brought about by increase of grace and new gifts. This is 
when man, with humble heart, partakes of a sacrament without placing 
any obstacle to its efficacy. Indeed, he thus acquires new gifts and 
additional graces, both by reason of his humility and on account of the 
mysterious working of Christ in the sacraments. 


1Hugues de Saint-Victor says: Sacramentum est visibilis forma invisibilis 
gratiae in eo collatae. 


200 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


The sacrament thus acts ex opere operato; its virtue is not 
diminished by the state of sin on the part of the priest. The 
latter, “though he be in a state of mortal sin and condemned 
to hell, cannot profane or defile the sacrament.” 

The sacraments are connected with the Incarnation of 
Christ; it is through them that Christ remakes man. The 
efficacy, however, of the sacrament is utterly inoperative 
unless there be in the worshipper an impulse of will and heart 
towards Christ, and also sincere repentance. “Then will the 
priest rejoice and administer to that man the holy sacrament, 
whatever season of the year it be.” 

Ruysbroeck bore a special love for the sacrament of the 
Communion. To it he devoted the greater portion of his book 
The Mirror of Eternal Salvation (chapters iv. to xvii.), in 
an attempt to explain the virtue of the sacrament and to 
state in what manner one may fittingly partake of it. 

In its external aspect, the Communion first of all repre- 
sents the Jewish Passover, abolished by Christ, and then 
restored by him. It is the testament of the Saviour, 
and this testament is none other than himself, God and man, present in 
all his gifts. 

In saying: This is my body, he changed the substance of the bread into 
the substance of his body, not in such fashion that the bread was reduced 
to nothing, but that, ceasing to be bread, it became the body of our 
Lord. ... At the moment of consecration, the entire Host is no more 
than one simple substance of the body of our Lord... and though it 
be scattered to the ends of the earth, the sacrament is one, and the 


living body of our Lord remains in its undivided unity. , . . It is the 
same with the wine.l 


Thus does Christ, in this sacrament, offer and promise us 
his divinity to enjoy eternally. “Can one then wonder that 
they are in a state of rejoicing who taste and experience such 
things? He died through love in order that we may live, and 
he lives in us in order that we may remain living in him 
throughout eternity.” 

Those excluded from the sacrament are “first of all the 
heathen, Jews, and all infidels. Then come those evil Christians 


1 This is the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as exalted into a dogma in 1215. 
Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, III.4, quaest. lxxiii. art. 2; quaest. Ixxv., arts. 2-4. 


Pie DOC PRUNE OPM RY SB ROECK vox 


who blaspheme and despise Christ, who do not esteem his 
august sacrament, or do not believe that he is there in flesh 
and blood.” And Ruysbroeck concludes in characteristic 
words expressive of his vigorous moral teaching: “They shall 
not be buried alongside of Christians. For so long as man per- 
sists in his evil will and feels no contrition for his sins, there 
is neither pope nor priest living who can absolve him: if he 
dies, he is damned.” 2 


1 The Mirror, chapter xvi. 


CHAPTER XI 
SCHOLASTICISM 


Now indeed we have reached the very heart of our subject. 

The foregoing pages have been an attempt to point out 
exactly all those historical influences which, operating from 
the outside, have entered as constituent elements into the 
formation of Ruysbroeck’s mind. Persuaded that man is 
largely determined by his environment, we have deemed it 
necessary to describe the historical ground whereon his 
personality grew and developed. Evidently the first inspira- 
tion of Ruysbroeck’s thought is to be found in the turbulent 
soul of his time. He has bent low over it, listened to its 
plaints, divined its needs, and attempted to supply it with the 
food for which it asked. 

We think we have defined and fixed the progress of this 
thought with tolerable exactness. Beneath the pressure of 
circumstances—corruption of the Church, individual dis- 
organisation and social upheavals—it sprang into being almost 
spontaneously, attaining at the very outset, in The Kingdom 
of God’s Lovers and The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, 
the level at which it was to remain, without perceptible 
variation. Before taking his religious vows Ruysbroeck had 
already thought out the main lines of his system. This system 
we can now look upon as a mysticism based on speculation 
and tending to action. 

The second stage of Ruysbroeck’s thought coincides 
with his acceptance of the rule of the Augustinian canons. 
From this moment, without reconsidering the speculative 
premises, his mind expands and develops, broadens like an 
estuary, and culminates in a conception of the common life 


which claims to harmonise contemplation and action. 
202 


SCHOLASTICISM 203 


These two great intellectual stages, then, are intimately 
linked up with the very career of our author. In determining 
the undoubted facts of this career, in following chronologi- 
cally the expression of this thought wherein events are vividly 
mirrored, in fitting, as it were, the facts of intellectual life 
into the framework of material life, we have simply allowed 
ourselves to be instructed, without, of ourselves, obtruding 
anything upon history. 

And now we are led, by the progress of our task itself, to 
deny in toto the idealised portrait which most biographers 
have viewed with complacency. We are not dealing with an 
illuminate, detached from things terrestrial, solely taught 
and controlled by the unrestrained inspirations of an ecstatic 
nature. Ruysbroeck is a man, a combatant, a reformer whose 
mind is engrossed with realities above all else. And though 
in all his aspirations attached to his age, though absolutely 
linked thereto in pitying devotion, he is also quite as much 
dependent on it for his mental processes and intellectual 
methods. 

When we release Ruysbroeck’s thought from its allegorical 
garb, and translate it, so to speak, we cannot deny a strangely 
perceptible scholastic influence. There is revealed a solid 
theological mould in the exposition and presentation of the 
various parts, in the choice of arguments and even of actual 
terms. So fixed and definite a conception of the world cannot 
be improvised. And however great the element of personal 
inspiration, we cannot understand Ruysbroeck apart from 
the masters who shaped him. 

We must now attempt to determine these masters. 

And so the object of our inquiry is the following: to set 
up and determine the filiation of ideas whose ensemble 
constitutes what is called the thought of the author. We must 
ask ourselves what was their source, influenced by what 
reading or circumstances they took root. 

This, in the case of Ruysbroeck, is an altogether new 
work, one doubtless that cannot claim to receive a clear and 
final solution, for, though of thrilling interest, the search 


204. RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


after the generation of ideas is the most arduous and the 
least favoured of a critic’s tasks. It is therefore fitting, at 
the outset, to diminish all risks of error, and, with this 
object, to set up an absolute rule and allow the various texts 
to speak quite impartially. There can be no history where 
research is fitted in to preconceived theories and the elements 
of information artificially grouped with a view to support a 
theory established from the first. By submitting strictly to 
this stern discipline, we hope to be able to shed new light 
upon the strange phenomenon of speculative mysticism in 
the fourteenth century. 

To attain this object as nearly as possible, what will be 
the method to follow? There can be but one: the comparison 
and analysis of texts. By utilising the ordinary practices 
employed in the history of philosophy and proceeding to a 
series of demarcations and eliminations, it may be possible 
to distinguish the various philosophical currents interblended 
in the work of Ruysbroeck. We shall be able to determine 
what comes from his contemporaries and what is obtained 
from his predecessors, to isolate the original contribution 
of the author from his origins, strictly so called. And thus 
maybe we shall be carried back, retrogressively, far beyond 
the period within which is embodied the literary activity 
of our mystic. 


I 


Even a slight acquaintance with the end of the Middle 
Ages enables us at once to recognise that Ruysbroeck made 
his own many of the ideas in vogue during the fourteenth 
century. Still, the mere fact of having definite knowledge 
of his inspirers does not make Ruysbroeck of any great help 
to us. Is this from discretion regarding whatever affects him 
somewhat intimately? Or is it in order to conform with the 
habits of a period which, ignorant of our literary scruples, 
took what it wanted from any source? However it be, the 


SCHOLASTICISM 205 


fact remains that Ruysbroeck is almost completely silent 
regarding his origins. 

We say almost completely, for here and there he quotes 
some of his masters: Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint 
Gregory, Saint Anselm, and more frequently Saint Bernard, 
whose influence over him was predominant. Still, however 
precious these indications, they are too infrequent and pre- 
carious to make it possible to set up the exact spiritual links 
between these writers and Ruysbroeck. 

Reduced then to our own resources, we must first outline 
briefly the intellectual development of the period. 

This development is wholly confined to the problem of 
the relations between reason and faith and to the attitude 
assumed more especially by the masters of the University 
of Paris, where the philosophy of Aristotle, recently intro- 
duced by the Arabs, found enthusiastic adherents and no 
less fervent opponents. 

The great philosophical problem has always been to 
think the world. Now, up to the thirteenth century, what 
had been the position of Western thinkers regarding the 
phenomena of nature? A dogmatic position, one resulting 
from an intellectual a priori tending to make the explanation 
of the world conformable with the data of revelation. This 
position is maintained in its entirety by Scotus Erigena, who 
conceives of the world solely from the religious angle. But 
the Neoplatonist inspiration of Scotus Erigena was destined 
to carry him beyond the confines of the Christian dogma. The 
true master of the Middle Ages, previous to Scholasticism, 
is Peter Lombard, the ‘maître des sentences,” whose instruc- 
tion, solemnly consecrated in 1215 in the Lateran council, 
dominates the schools, and only wanes before the growing 
influence of Thomas Aquinas, at the dawn of the fourteenth 
century. 

The University of Paris had been constituted, in 1200, 
under the auspices of Philippe-Auguste and Pope Innocent 
III., by uniting into one body the three groups of masters 
and pupils, which, on this side of the Petit-Pont, formed real 


206 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


faculties though they did not bear the name. The new uni- 
versity, founded under the inspiration of the Pope for uniting 
all the masters and students, was thus in reality the citadel 
of religion (arx catholicae fidet), where the faculty of theology 
had for its daughters and subordinates the faculties of arts 
and of law. The popes scrupulously watched at the doors of 
the new institution to prevent the profane sciences and philo- 
sophical systems of the pagans from entering the sanctuary. 

Meanwhile, within the university, the masters, as well 
as the students, did not fail to be tormented in soul by the 
intellectual unrest. All felt more or less the sense of a gap in 
the representation of the world as set forth in the teaching. 
This gap consisted of the absence of any logical bond which 
would have co-ordinated the incongruous elements of this 
teaching. To debate endlessly on some particular point may 
sharpen the dialectical sense, but the mind above all else 
called for a coherent system furnishing a rational explanation 
of the universe. The fragments of Aristotle then studied, along 
with Augustinism wholly imbued with Platonism, prevented 
any kind of reconciliation. 

It is at this time of disturbance that the university be- 
came acquainted, through the translation made by the College 
of Toledo, with the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle. 
The misrepresentations of this Peripateticism, travestied by 
Avicenna and Averroés, did not prevent teachers of philo- 
sophy from finding in the philosophy of the Stagirite the very 
thing lacking in the official teaching, i.e. a systematisation. 
This philosophy, if one may say so, exactly fitted into the 
yawning gap. ‘“‘ For the first time, and simultaneously, the 
men of the Middle Ages found themselves confronted with 
an explanation of the phenomena of nature as a whole.” 1 

Such was the repercussion of this influx of Hellenic thought 
that two opposing currents manifested themselves within 
the university itself. 

Following on the ecclesiastical authority which, in 1210, 
1215 and 1231, forbade, under penalty of excommunication, 

1E. Gilson, La Philosophie au moyen âge, t. I. p. 122. 


SCHOLASTICISM 207 


the study of Aristotle’s writings, came such famous masters 
as Guillaume d’Auxerre, Philippe de Gréve, Guillaume 
d’Auvergne and, at a later date and with certain reservations, 
Saint Bonaventura. These remained Augustinians, resolutely 
upholding against Aristotle the Platonic theory of ideas which 
the doctor of Hippo had introduced into Christianity and 
the hierarchical plurality of forms. Other masters, no less 
illustrious, Boétius of Dacia, and above all Siger of Brabant 
and his followers, commonly designated as Latin Averroists, 
while maintaining the priority of the Catholic faith over the 
doctrine of Aristotle, enthusiastically welcomed, as the 
expression of truth 1% toto, the Peripateticism as inter- 
preted by Averroés. Certain of Siger’s disciples went so far 
beyond their master that their philosophy degenerated 
into an amorphous pantheism, denying Providence, creation, 
immortality. 

Victory could not belong to either of these extreme 
positions. Was there not a via media between the two? 
Clearly Aristotle’s physics was absolutely coherent and mani- 
festly answered all the questions framed by the mind re- 
garding the constitution of the universe. On the other hand, 
Augustinism offered a system of metaphysics which the 
Christian faith could not abjure without committing suicide. 
It appeared to synthetic minds like Albertus Magnus and 
Thomas Aquinas that the two parties, far from excluding, 
complemented each other, and that the Aristotelian universe 
might serve as a groundwork for the imposing metaphysical 
structure in which Plato and Augustine had collaborated. 

The strange thing was that this philosophical dispute, 
considerably magnified in scope, was not long in overstepping 
the limits of the schools and penetrating into the monasteries. 
The Franciscans, along with Bonaventura, whilst deviating, 
as regards Aristotle, from the irreducible hostility of the 
dispute, nevertheless remained the faithful apologists of 
Augustinism. The Dominicans, on the other hand, offered 
wide hospitality to the philosophy of Aristotle, and under- 
took the big task of introducing Peripateticism into Chris- 


208 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


tianity and blending them into a single system of the most 
authoritative cohesiveness. 

To Albertus Magnus falls the honour of conceiving and 
laying the first foundations of this vast work, one that has 
not even yet spent its force; but it was Thomas Aquinas 
who really built up the system, and, with truly sublime 
intellectual suppleness, succeeded in permeating with the 
philosophies of Greece and the East the ideas in vogue 
even at the present time.} 

The parallel study of the Alberto-Thomist philosophy 
and of the speculative mysticism of the fourteenth century 
no longer permits us to uphold the generally accredited 
opposition between the Scholasticism of the thirteenth 
century and the mystical schools of the following century. 

The merit of being the first to glimpse the relations 
between the Thomist Scholasticism and speculative mys- 
ticism falls to Denifle, in a series of articles on Meister 
Eckhart that appeared in the Archiv fiir Literatur und 
Kirchengeschichte des Mitielalters.2 The thesis was so stoutly 
upheld and so well supported by texts that such a thinker 
as Harnack was won over to it, designating as epochemachend 
the works of Denifle on this subject.? The thesis, justified 
in the case of Meister Eckhart, is also justified in that of 
Ruysbroeck, though with greater reserve, for Ruysbroeck 
by no means drew exclusively on the. springs of Aristotelian 
Scholasticism. And though following Thomas Aquinas in a 
great number of points, in others he does not fail to prefer 
the Augustinian Bonaventura. 


In Ruysbroeck, on the one hand, we have the effort of 
thought, the undertaking of a metaphysical structure. For 
knowledge precedes love. On the other hand, we have an 
impetus of the spirit, following on the speculative work, an 


1 E, Gilson very justly calls Thomas Aquinas the first of modern philosophers, 
“because he is the first Occidental whose thought was enslaved neither to a 
dogma nor to a system.” Études, preface, p. v. 

? See especially t. II. pp. 416 ss., the article entitled: Meister Eckharts lateinische 
Schriften und die Grundanschauung seiner Lehre (1885). 

8 Dogmengeschichte, t. III. pp. 394 ss. 


SCHOLASTICISM 209 


interior development which attempts to outstrip the limits 
imposed on human knowledge. 

We have seen how Ruysbroeck establishes the legitimacy 
of a method embracing religion and philosophy alike. In 
effect, for him as for Saint Thomas, the distinction does not 
exist. Both paths have their end in God, so that philosophy 
and religion are names that apply alike to the same study. 
This is the point of view of Scotus Erigena. Whether specu- 
lation precedes mysticism, or the effort of the spirit that 
attempts to lose itself in God precedes reasoning, the only 
difference is in the point of outlook. And we find very similar 
thinkers pronouncing in favour now of the one, now of the 
other point of view. The common thought is that which has 
been expressed by Saint Anselm in the following terms: 
non tento, Domine, penetrare altitudinem tuam, quia nullatenus 
comparo 1lli intellectum meum; sed desidero aliquatenus 
intelligere veritatem tuam quam credit et amat cor meum+ 

To attribute to Scholasticism the impossible presumption 
of reaching God by speculation alone, is to misunderstand 
the repeated declarations of the greatest Scholastics. No one 
experienced the limitations imposed by language as did 
Saint Thomas Aquinas: #mpossibile est quod per definitiones 
borum nominum definiatur 1d quod est in Deo? 

Scholasticism contented itself with placing God at the 
summit of being, with applying to him not definitions but 
analogies, and, once the demarcation has been clearly 
traced, with establishing itself within the field of what is 
humanly intelligible. As in the case of the mystics, the effort 
of the Scholastics culminates in a theology of feeling. After 
that, whether the former give a wider development to 
personal piety and the latter mainly deal with speculation, 
signifies but a difference in degree. By carrying this pro- 
position even to extremes, we should come to admit that 
mysticism is treading a path on which the Scholastics are 
setting up an insurmountable barrier. As has been said, 


1 Proslogium, lib. I. cap. i. ? Compendium theol., cap. x. 
* Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, t. III. p. 314. 


210 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


mysticism admits of no mystery whatsoever. God him- 
self becomes intelligible, and with him all things. Adopting 
this attitude, mysticism evidently ARR QUE nearer to 
modern philosophy than does Scholasticism.! Still, how- 
ever far mysticism claims to go, its starting-point is always 
speculation.? 

This is what we have now to show in the special instance 
of Ruysbroeck. We shall try to discover what ideas connect 
his system with the teaching of the great Scholastics of the 
thirteenth century. 


IT 


$ 1. Ruysbroeck and minds similar to his are connected 
first of all with Scholasticism through the position they take 
up in the famous controversy on the nature of wniversals. 

We know what was the object of this dispute, which stirred 
three centuries to such an extent that John of Salisbury 
could speak of “this question upon which the world in travail 
has grown old, to which it devoted more time than the 
Cæsars spent in conquering and governing the world empire, 
for which more money was spent than Crœsus with all his 
wealth ever possessed.”’ 

The question is set forth in the preliminary epistle of the 
Isagogics of Porphyry. Its three terms may be summed up 
in this single proposition: have genera and species a real 
existence or do they exist only in the mind? We know that 
theologians were divided into three categories: the nominalists 
(Roscelin), maintaining that genera are but simple abstractions 
of the mind, clad in verbal form, flatus vocis; the realists 
(Anselm, Guillaume de Champeaux), affirming on the con- 
trary that genera are the only realities that exist, that the 
universal essence subsists eternally in the divine ideas, and, 


1H. Delacroix, Essai sur le mysticisme spéculatif en Allemagne au XIVe siècle, 
pp. 13-16. 

* Harnack says: die Mystik ist die Voraussetzung der Scholastik (Dogmen- 
geschichte, t. III. p. 303). 


SCHOLASTICISM 211 


as type, in human intelligence also; and lastly, an inter- 
mediate party represented by Abélard: conceptualists. 
According to this theory individuals constitute the essence 
of beings, and genera are not mere words, since they are in 
the mind, which is a very real form of existence. 

It is outside of our purpose to relate the varied fortunes 
of this joust. Still, it must be mentioned because of the part 
played in this affair by Bernard de Clairvaux and Hugues de 
Saint-Victor in bringing mysticism into the lists against 
Abélard. Although at the end of the thirteenth and the 
beginning of the fourteenth century the quarrel had lost 
almost all its bitterness, both sides still confronted each other. 
Thus, in the days of Ruysbroeck, Durand de Saint-Pourçain 
and Guillaume d’Occam resurrected nominalism, and it is to 
their action, combined with that of the Latin Averroists, 
that must be attributed the gradual decline of the Thomist 
school, the last representative of which, Capreolus de Rodez 
(1380-1444), vainly endeavoured to restore its authority in 
his monumental Liber defensionum theologiae divi doctoris 
: Thomae 

After the classification just mentioned, we may divine 
which side the speculative mystics chose. They are all 
realists, though of a moderate type. It could not be otherwise, 
for the theory of exemplarism is in a way but the develop- 
ment of the formula universalia ante res. Besides, they found 
the theory clearly formulated by Albertus Magnus. The 
latter, evading the meaning that Plato had given to his 
ideas as subsisting in themselves, showed them eternally 
formed in God and serving as a model for all created things.? 


$2. The influence of Albertus Magnus, however, from 
the purely philosophical point of view, on Ruysbroeck and 
the speculative mystics, was very limited. Far more powerful 


1De Wulf, Hist. de la philosophie médiévale, pp. 434 ss. 

2 Sum. theol. (édit. Jammy), LI. tr. 15, p. 335: Dicendum quod omnia dicuntur 
esse in Deo per vationes exemplares et ideales, quibus facta sunt omnia, et quibus 
sunt in arte divina et sapientia. 

- In Sent. I. dist. 29, p. 329: Universale comparatur ad particulare quod esi sub 
ipso, addens ei aliquid quod non est ipsum, quo efficitur particulare. 


212 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


was the influence of his cosmology; in this domain Alber- 
tus was indeed a master, an initiator. He studied almost 
all the sciences known in his day, and some of his personal 
observations, especially in botany, earned for him such 
enthusiastic testimony as that of Alexander von Humboldt. 
Urged by the Dominicans to collect in a book of natural 
science the results of his experiments, Albertus wrote no 
fewer than eighteen treatises on the subject. And we may 
gauge the progress effected by this sagacious observer if we 
compare his learning with the puerilities that abound in the 
writings of the Middle Ages.! 

Undoubtedly it was on this prolific source that Ruys- 
broeck drew for all that part of his work which may be called 
scientific. We have mentioned the rôle played by nature in 
the system of our mystic. He was not satisfied, like Saint 
Bernard, to obtain instruction from the beeches, he passion- 
ately investigated the most varied phenomena of the uni- 
verse, attempting, behind the forms and developments of the 
material world, to lay hold upon analogies that could be 
applied to the spiritual world. It would be possible to obtain 
from Ruysbroeck’s work a singularly consistent picture of 
the stage of development of the various sciences during 
the fourteenth century. Ruysbroeck interests himself in 
everything: mineralogy, botony, zoology, astronomy, though 
everywhere scrupulously following. the lead of Albertus 
Magnus. He is acquainted with grafting, floral fertilisation, 
meteorological phenomena, the tides, the habits of ants and 
bees; he speaks of experiments in physics, he mentions by 
name a great number of forest species and flowers. But his 
dependent attitude is most pronounced in cosmology. He 
follows absolutely Albertus Magnus and Saint Thomas, 
whose labours were principally directed to restoring—by 
adapting it—the cosmology of Aristotle. Basing itself on 
the geocentric system of Ptolemy, the Scholasticism of the 
thirteenth century set up an astronomical system framed 


1Cf. V. Langlois, La connaissance de la nature et du monde au moyen âge 
(Paris, 1911). 


SCHOLASTICISM ang 


upon three concentric spheres: the sphere of the planets, that 
of the fixed stars, and lastly the sphere designated as primum 
mobile. The revolution of these spheres round the earth 
accounted for the diurnal motion from east to west. 

The sublunary bodies, i.e. terrestrial substances, are not 
dependent, like the heavenly bodies, on intelligent motor 
forces, but on the influence of these heavenly bodies. The 
planets direct the rectilineal motion of the four elements 
that enter into the composition of sublunary bodies: fire and 
air, endowed with an ascending motion as regards the earth; 
earth and water, on the other hand, tending towards the 
centre. The astral universe is not subject to change, whereas 
the terrestrial elements become transformed, and, permeating 
each other, determine those incessant modifications of 
which the earth is the theatre. Identical modifications take 
place in the human body, wherein the humours (choler, or 
yellow bile, phlegm, blood, and black bile, or melancholy) 
correspond to the four elements and determine the four 
temperaments.! 

Hence for Ruysbroeck—as for Saint Thomas, Albertus 
Magnus and Duns Scotus—the correlation between the life 
of the universe and the moral life. Man is a part of the world; 
in his material organism he is subject to it, and in proportion 
as this material organism reacts upon the life of the spirit 
does it participate in the vicissitudes of the Cosmos, and 
conversely. Thus it is that fevers, occasioned by marshy 
emanations, disturb the imagination, modify our thoughts 
and make languid the will, though these are spiritual faculties. 
Nevertheless, and even though the temperament be deter- 
mined by some particular planet, man can evade this domin- 
ation by his will. Human freedom remains unimpaired. Thus 
the angry man, determined by a planetary sign, can never- 
theless restrain the impulses to which his temperament 
inclines him; the impure man can subjugate his carnal 


1 See principally The Kingdom, chapters iv. and xxvii.; The Spiritual Marriage, 
book II. chapter 1. Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, 1.4 quaest. xci. art. 1; I.4 quaest. xciii. 
art. 6. Cf. A. Dufourcq, Les Origines de la science moderne, in Revue des Deux 
Mondes (15 July, 1913), pp. 349 ss. 

R 


214 RUYSBROECK* THE -ADMIRABLE 


desires. Thus, too, will and freedom are opportunities given 
to man by God so that he may evade his determinism and 
make himself secure in the spiritual life, in which there is 
no fatalism. 

Astrology has in these modern times fallen into such 
oblivion that it is difficult to understand how important to 
Ruysbroeck and the Scholastics was the influence of the 
heavenly bodies. Nor must we forget that astronomy pre- 
ceded metaphysics, nor the close relationship between 
Scholastic speculation and Aristotelian physics. It is well 
known that the Stagirite attributed to astral substance a 
perfection superior to that of terrestrial substance. In the 
rotation of the celestial bodies he saw the action of astral 
souls, intelligent and divine forms, immutable determina- 
tions of the soul of nature, thus removing the astronomical 
world from the laws of deterioration. Plotinus himself, whose 
influence upon the Scholasticism of the thirteenth century 
is no less manifest than that of Aristotle, though he con- 
siderably minimises the rôle of the heavenly bodies in human 
destiny, yet devotes the whole of the third book of his second 
Ennead to planetary influences. And Proclus, his disciple, 
regards them as divine animals endowed with a universal 
soul, whereas individuals possess only a particular soul. Is 
it to be wondered that the great Scholastics, drawing upon 
the dual spring of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, re- 
cognise intelligent motor forces connected with the spheres 
on which they imprint their mechanical motion? Besides, in 
virtue of the law: omnis motus ab immobili procedit, Thomas 
Aquinas relates to the heavenly bodies the incessant muta- 
bility of things terrestrial, these bodies being the most 
immovable of all, for they are subject only to a single local 
motion. Hence we can understand the importance acquired 
by astrology, and we cannot blame an age which knew 
nothing of the telescope for drawing conclusions from principles 
vouched for by the greatest minds of antiquity. By adopting 
this Scholastic cosmology as he found it, Ruysbroeck did 
nothing more than prove himself the product of his times. 


SCHOLASTICISM 215 
§ 3. The theory of creation, as expounded by Ruysbroeck, 


depends alike on Scholasticism and on the Neoplatonism of 
Scotus Erigena. Moreover, the two schools have in common, 
apart from modifications of detail, the theory of exem- 
plarism of the rationes aeternae, which upholds the entire 
system.! Creation is nothing else than the mode according 
to which being emanates from its universal cause, which, 
from the fact of the emanation, becomes efficient cause: 
id a quo aliquid fit. Thus we are enabled to speak, in expressing 
the state of an object or being before its creation, of non- 
being or of nothingness. Thomas Aquinas points to three 
reasons for proving that creation is the result, not of a neces- 
sity inherent in divine nature, but of an act of free-will. 
Ruysbroeck accepted this conception, while all the time 
maintaining the Neoplatonist idea of a creation of necessity: 
as fire necessarily radiates heat, God radiates life; but, while 

ressed by his very munificence and wealth to manifest 
himself, the creation of man and of angels is the act of his 
free-willing. ‘We are no longer emanations from God accord- 
ing to nature or from necessity, but in the freedom of his 
willing.” ? 

We also find in Ruysbroeck the theory of ideas as Saint 
Thomas expounds it to explain how the many comes from 
the one, the imperfect from the perfect. As an architect 
cannot build a house unless he mentally possesses 1m 1dea each 
of the parts of the house, so creation could not be unless all 
things had previously had their being im idea in the thought 
of God. The inequality of created things is explained by the 
distance from which the idea is projected. As God is unable 
to express perfectly his resemblance upon a single being, he 
has been compelled to scatter this perfection over the entire 
multiplicity of beings. Thus has come about a veritable 
hierarchy, each stage of which is a little nearer to perfection. 

God, the efficient cause of creation, is also its final cause. 


1 Rohner, Das Schépfungsproblem bet Moses Maimonides, Albertus Magnus 
und Thomas von Aquin, Minster (Beitr. z. Geschichte der Philos. des Mittelalters, 
1913, Bd. xi. 5). 

3 The Mirror, chapter xvii. 


216 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


All beings tend towards him in never-ceasing progress. Hence 
that finality of nature which Albertus Magnus, in especial, 
has developed so magnificently; hence too that fullness of 
life everywhere distributed, that virtus activa which makes 
of matter a perpetual becoming: corruptio unius est generatio 
alterius. 

In a word, man, the object and the centre of creation, is 
the microcosm. He reproduces not only the universe which 
is again found in him with its constitutive laws, but he also 
reflects divinity in its essential unity. Of himself he does not 
constitute an entity, but he is a compound of two elements, 
body and soul, which separately would have no distinctive 
existence of their own. Nevertheless, the soul, of itself alone, 
constitutes a forma substantialhis; it is only that, and not a 
compound of matter and form, as Bonaventura claims. 

Still, the soul of man is distinguished from the sentient 
soul of animals, which has being and subsistence only in its 
union with matter. Indeed, its essential property is its in- 
tellectuality. Clearly the intellectual functioning of the soul 
takes place without the direct participation of the body 
and its organs, and it extends to realities absolutely 
separate from matter: namely, the eternal and the divine. 
None the less, of itself alone it can form neither the essence 
of man nor his person; for, if the manifestations of life all 
derive from the soul, they cannot really exist without an 
essential participation of matter or of body. Again, the human 
soul can have perception and sense-desire only with the 
co-operation of the body to which it gives activity. 

So far Ruysbroeck faithfully follows Saint Thomas 
Aquinas. Now, however, on one question he leaves him and 
follows Scotus Erigena. The latter admitted that man bore 
the tripartite impress of the divine hypostases. The Alberto- 
Thomist philosophy, on the other hand, recognises in the 
soul no trace whatsoever of a trinity of persons. Knowledge of 
the trinity is one we can acquire only by way of revelation. 
The path of observation can lead us only to comprehend in 
God the unity of essence. Saint Thomas is categorical on this 


SCHOLASTICISM 217 


point: per rationem naturalem cognosci possunt de Deo ea quae 
pertinent ad unitatem essentiae, non ea quae pertinent ad 
distinctionem personarum. Qui autem probare nititur trini- 
tatem personarum natural ratione fidet derogat. Now on this 
point Ruysbroeck is not less categorical in deviating from 
his Scholastic predecessors. As we shall see later, he prefers 
to adopt the Neoplatonist theory as he found it in the 
Pseudo-Dionysius and in Scotus Erigena. Immediately after- 
wards, however, he again takes up the psychology of 
Scholasticism. 

Few philosophies advanced so far in the study of the 
soul and its powers as did Scholasticism. In consequence, 
Ruysbroeck found ready prepared the elements for his 
mystical structure. Nothing could be more instructive than 
to set out in parallel columns the doctrine of the Summa of 
Thomas Aquinas and those chapters from The Spiritual 
Marriage, The Kingdom and The Tabernacle that deal with 
the subject. The identity is carried to the point of verbal 
literalism. To pursue this parallel into details would be 
fastidious. Nevertheless, if we are to establish the depend- 
ence—still greatly disputed—of Ruysbroeck on Scholasticism, 
it is necessary to note the points in common. 


From the outset Ruysbroeck adopts the Thomist dis- 
tinction between the soul—properly so called—and mind, 
or intellect. In reality the two blend; they are one and the 
same substance. Their prerogatives, however, are different. 
In this one single substance of the human soul there is 
plurality and distinction of faculties. And it is precisely the 
multiplicity of the faculties of the human soul that gives it 
its place in the hierarchy of creatures. This place is a second- 
ary one, for perfection bears a direct relation to simplification. 
The angels, for instance, are at a higher stage than the human 
soul by reason of their greater simplicity and of the fewer 
processes to which they are subjected. But the soul, anima 
separata, that part of the one substance which will manifest 
after resurrection, has for its main process the reduction 


218 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


to unity. It is a principle of simplification, and hence an 
instrument of perfectionism. Thus it constitutes an active 
power. 

The intellect (gheest), on the other hand, is a passive power, 
i.c. in the meaning which Saint Thomas gives to this term, 
one that is capable of receiving, of being enriched by, the 
action of agents external to itself. These two powers, 17- 
tellectus agens, intellectus possibilis, unite and collaborate 
to complete the work of knowledge. The majority of spiritual 
processes do not thus constitute particular powers: memory, 
the deductive mind (ratio, redelichett), conscience (synterests, 
vonke der sielen) are, so to speak, both in Ruysbroeck and in 
Saint Thomas, various forms of spiritual working. 

The soul, regarded as a whole, thus seems to be gifted 
with two orders of capacity: it is capable of knowing, though, 
being gifted with inclination, it is still capable of desiring 
and willing. 

We will examine these two capacities in succession. 

Saint Thomas—and after him Ruysbroeck—begins with 
the Aristotelian study of the five faculties. Leaving on one 
side the faculties of nutrition and locomotion, which are 
apart from our subject, although they also have to do with 
knowledge, we shall consider only the faculties of sensation, 
the intellectual faculties and the appetitive or inclinatory 
faculties. 

The sentient power of the soul constitutes the first stage 
of knowledge. This is, however, a very degraded form, seeing 
that it affects the soul only through the medium of the senses. 
Sensations received from without are interpreted by the soul, 
so that to the five outer sentient powers with which we are 
all acquainted there correspond five inner sentient powers. 

At the outset we have at the bottom of the scale the inner 
general sense which receives perceptions supplied externally, 
without being able to analyse them. These perceptions 
are received separately by the general sense; it is incapable 
of associating them when they are different in nature. For 
instance, this sense may perceive the colour of a rose, but it 


SCHOLASTICISM 219 


cannot, at the same time, perceive its perfume, these per- 
ceptions being different in nature. Afterwards these per- 
ceptions must be registered in such a way that the soul 
can experience them even when the object from which they 
emanate is absent: this is the rôle of the phantasia, which 
reproduces and preserves the images of absent objects. This 
phantasia is distinct from imagination, which Alexandre de 
Halès regarded as one of the sentient inner powers. Here we 
have one of those points in which we see at once Ruysbroeck’s 
dependence upon Saint Thomas. Along with the latter, he 
regards imagination as one of the intellectual powers, and 
the reasons he invokes for this are none other than those 
of Saint Thomas: imagination is a power which combines 
the various sense-representations to make a new whole of 
them; it thus enters upon a genuine intellectual process. 
Saint Thomas then replaces imagination by what he calls 
the particular reason. And this third power, when developed, 
gives way to a fourth: the wis aestimativa, which judges of 
the utility or the harmfulness of things with reference to 
our needs. The estimative power, however, of itself func- 
tions only in the presence of objects. Therefore a fifth power 
must intervene which will retain the judgments pronounced 
separately by the ws aestimativa: memory or reminiscence. 

We see that the inner sentient processes already border 
upon the real intellectual domain. It is here that knowledge 
is completed: #1] in intellectu quin prius fuerit in sensu. Thus 
the intellect acts as a reader, in accordance with the etymology 
of the phrase: intus legere. 

Saint Thomas carried to its slightest details his theory 
of knowledge, a very abstruse one. Ruysbroeck, whose aim 
is practical above all else, did not concern himself with 
details, but reduced the theory to its main elements. He thus 
sums up the life of the spirit as thought (memorte, gedachte), 
intelligence (verstennisse) and will (wille). 

Intelligence, as understood by Ruysbroeck, is nothing 
else than the sntellectus agens of Saint Thomas. Indeed, chap- 
ter v. of The Kingdom of God’s Lovers alludes in a few lines 


220° RUYSBROECK "LAE ADMIRABLE 


to the passive intellect, though in reality, to Ruysbroeck, 
all the processes of the mind are actions of prehension, 
combination and interpretation. 

Clearly the human mind could not apprehend objects 
without being inclined towards them by interior illumination 
that comes from supreme truth. Here we recognise the idea 
of eternal essences, so dear to Saint Augustine. Saint Thomas 
introduces certain improvements in the Augustinian theory. 
He does not think that by reason of his imperfection man 
can perceive the eternal essences; but, by divine grace, the 
human intellect holds in germ all knowledge. These germs 
thus constitute the first indications of our intelligence.? 
It is upon these first indications that the distinctive work of 
the intellect must be expended. This work consists in setting 
the intelligence free from the notions transmitted to us by 
our senses. For instance, touch or sight gives us the perception 
of a mineral, of something indeterminate. It is the intellect 
that is to disentangle from this perception the ideas relative 
to the nature of this stone. It will discern whether the latter 
is a fragment of antimony, an emerald, or a splinter of sand- 
stone. To work out this dissociation, which is also necessary 
for learning the nature of spiritual realities, memory— 
Ruysbroeck more frequently says zhought—will intervene in 
the first place. This intellectual memory is different from 
sense memory, which applies only to sensations: the in- 
tellectual memory applies exclusively to the intelligible. It 
is the mental retention of a previous process, effected once 
for all, and to which all like situations are applicable. 

But the data supplied by memory are, so to speak, in 
their rough state. After receiving them they must be com- 
prehended, and this is the rôle of the understanding or of 
discursive knowledge (verstennisse). And this understanding 
bears at the same time upon substances that are naturally 
_ inferior or superior to the human intellect. Ratio is then the 


1 The intellect quite naturally ceases to act and takes its rest,” etc. 
? De Veritate, xi. 1, ad Resp.: Primae conceptiones intellectus, quae statim 
lumine intellectus agentis cognoscuntur per species a sensibilibus abstractas. 


SCHOLASTICISM 221 


capacity to descend by deduction from general to particular 
ideas, or to ascend by induction from the particular to 
the general. 

Nevertheless, if knowledge were limited to the compre- 
hension of objects with which we are connected by the 
natural operations of life, a great part of reality would evade 
our ken. And so the mind possesses a third capacity: 2#- 
tellectual will. This latter inclines man towards the objects 
which intelligence offers him as a boon in general or as a 
means of obtaining this boon: bonum conveniens, which, in 
its highest expansion, constitutes beatitude. 

The intellectual will acts in the same way as the appetitive 
powers we have now to consider, and it is the relation between 
the two that determines spiritual ill-fortune or good-fortune. 
The intellectual will does not flow towards goodness by a 
necessity of nature. If it dominates the appetitive powers, 
the will will turn towards the good; if, on the other hand, it 
allows itself to be dominated and controlled by the sense- 
appetite, disorder and sin will have control in the will, for 
sin exists, says Saint Thomas, when the appetite freely 
inclines in the direction of disorder. In this case the faculty 
of intellectual discrimination is perverted; indeed, a passion 
may picture before us as good some object which really 
is evil. 

The walling of the soul, which should bring it to complete 
knowledge, is thus closely connected with the appetitive 
powers. Here too the parallel between Ruysbroeck and Saint 
Thomas is absolute. The sense appetite (sensualitas) may be 
divided into two distinct powers: the concupiscible appetite 
(appetitus concupiscibilis, begeerlike cracht), which desires and 
wins the good perceived as true, and the irascible appetite 
(appetitus 1rascibilis, tornighe cracht), which struggles against 
the difficulties in the way of obtaining this good. In them- 
selves these phases are neutral, i.e. neither good nor bad; 
their quality depends on reason, which controls them. Passiones 
ex seipsis non habent rationem bon vel mali ; bonum enim vel 
malum hominis est secundum rationem. 


222 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Here comes in the question of free-will. At once we must 
admit a constraint coming from nature: for instance, the 
desire for happiness in general, or rather the exclusiveness 
of a means for attaining the freely-determined end. But when 
the choice is left between several means, there remains an 
extensive domain over which the intellectual will can play 
with freedom of choice. It follows that the ltberum arbitrium 
of Saint Thomas, like the vrtheit des willen of Ruysbroeck, 
does not constitute a particular faculty along with the 
intellectual will, but simply a manifestation of this will 
working in a particular domain. 


Apart then from his corporeal organism, destined to 
decay, man consists of two superimposed organisms. The 
first consists of the faculties of the soul, governed by the 
will, which is all-powerful, seeing that it can prevent the 
action of grace. The supernatural organism, or spirit, formed 
of the three higher powers of the soul, is alone qualified to 
produce divine acts: it is the theatre for the exercise of grace, 
which therein begets the virtues and introduces the gifts 
of the Holy Spirit. In order that grace may be efficacious, it 
should be founded on the power of obedience which God 
himself has bestowed on the soul. 

Grace confers on the soul the so-called infused virtues: 
faith, hope and charity; they are called infused in order to 
distinguish them from the acquired virtues, which simply 
introduce man, by prolonged repetition of the same virtuous 
acts, into the natural order. 

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are virtues or higher per- 
fections. Saint Thomas and Ruysbroeck adopt the classifi- 
cation of Gregory the Great in determining these gifts and 
distinguishing them hierarchically. 

We have seen that, in the case both of Saint Thomas and 
of Ruysbroeck, intelligence constitutes the first and the 
highest faculty of man. Moreover, the final end of man, gua 
spiritual creature, is the complete possession of sovereign 
good, i.e. beatitude. Spiritual possession, however, is not 


SCHOLASTICISM 223 


obtained by the will, but by perfect knowledge or vision. 
We can well understand how interested Scholasticism was 
in this question of the beatific vision. Is it possible for the 
human intelligence, in this world, to attain to this contem- 
plation? Here Scholasticism found itself caught between the 
Aristotelian theory of intelligence and the Scriptural doctrine. 
As we are aware, the apostle Paul compares the knowledge 
we may have of God to the reflection of a mirror; in heaven 
alone spirit will behold face to face (visio facier) (1 Cor. 
xill. 12). It is this latter doctrine that is adopted by Saint 
Thomas, and it is on this point also that Ruysbroeck parts 
company with the “Angelic Doctor ”—in the third book of 
The Spiritual Marriage, at all events. In chapters 1. and il. 
of this book Ruysbroeck gives us to understand that the 
believer, even in this life, can attain to the “face-to-face 
vision,” an opinion which Pope John XXII. would seem to 
have shared.! In the state of indecision in which theologians 
found themselves, Benedict XII. was anxious to decide the 
matter, and formally defined the dogma in the bull Bene- 
dictus Deus (1336): Homines pios plene purgatos vel justos ex 
hac vita decedentes statim consequi beatitudinem et visione 
Dei beatifica perfrut. This bull enables us, as mentioned above, 
to declare that The Spiritual Marriage was written previous 
to 1336, and to set up a direct connection between this book 
and The Sparkling Stone, which evidently appeared as a 
corrective. The sentence at the end of chapter ix.: “our 
eternal life then involves distinct knowledge,” is an echo of 
the papal bull, as well as the whole development that follows 
in chapters x. and xi.: 


There is a great difference between the brightness of the saints and 
even the highest we can attain in this life. For though the shadow of God 
lighten the desert within, on the lofty mountains of the promised land 
there are no shadows at all. True, it is the same brightness . . . but the 
saints are in a state of translucidity and glory that enables them to receive 
the light without an intermediary; whereas we are still in the condition 
of dense mortality, and this constitutes an intermediary which makes a 
shade so capable of veiling our intelligence that it is impossible for us to 
know God and things celestial with the same brightness as do the saints. 


1St. Thomas formally condemned as heretical such an opinion (Suppl. 
quaest. lx. art. 2). 


224 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


In this passage Ruysbroeck clearly returns to the Thomist 
doctrine. 

The relation is continued regarding other doctrinal issues. 
The Fall has not affected man in his natural organism. The 
sin of Adam, however, has deprived the creature of super- 
natural gifts. The work of Christ consisted in restoring to 
man his spiritual nature. To bring this about Christ espoused 
human nature. 

We might continue this parallel which shows the influence 
exercised by the “Angelic Doctor” upon Ruysbroeck’s 
thought. Far from being a reaction against Scholasticism, 
Ruysbroeck’s speculative mysticism is rooted in the Thomist 
philosophy. His dependence occasionally goes as far as 
verbal identity. We even find in Saint Thomas the gradation 
of the spiritual life as pictured by Ruysbroeck: the division 
of the three lives, active, intimate, contemplative, them- 
selves subdivided into degrees or stages. But here Thomas 
Aquinas himself depends on prior representations, such as 
are to be found, amongst others, in Saint Gregory and 
Richard de Saint-Victor, who themselves came largely under 
the influence of Dionysian literature. 


$ 4. All the same, Ruysbroeck did not become exclusively 
enslaved to the thought of Thomas Aquinas. He came under 
the inspiration of another great Scholastic, one who had 
supported Augustinism against the Peripateticism of Saint 
Thomas: Saint Bonaventura. 

The Franciscan master is evidently more akin spiritually 
to Ruysbroeck than is Saint Thomas. Both of them, from the 
mildness of their disposition, are more inclined towards 
practical mysticism than towards speculation. 

That for which our mystic is most indebted to the Parisian 
doctor is the representation of the spiritual life according 
to the Ltimerartum mentis ad Deum and the Vitis mystica. 
The Seven Degrees is clearly an adaptation of the [tinerarium; 
chapter xvi. of The Seven Cloisters is likewise but a sum- 
mary of chapter vi. of the Z#inerarium, on the repose of 


SCHOLASTICISM 22:5 


the spirit in rapture. But what must chiefly be considered here 
is not so much analogy of detail as general inspiration. The 
entire work of Ruysbroeck appears before us as the develop- 
ment of the philosophy of Bonaventura as summed up in his 
Itinerarium. The human soul is a traveller journeying to 
God, and on the journey man is kept to the right path by 
innumerable signs. No one ever chanted the beauty of the 
physical world as did Bonaventura. He it is who said that 
the footsteps of God were imprinted on the dust along the 
wayside.! Blind and deaf is he who neither sees nor under- 
stands the message proclaimed by the universe. “The 
splendour of things shouts to us of God.” ? All things here 
below are signs: spectacula nobis ad contuendum Deum, 
preposita et signa divinitus data. But these signs are still, in 
the universe of sense, but wmbrae, resonantiae, or picturae. 
To apprehend the image of God himself, it must be sought 
in the soul, whereon it is graven. This is the second stage of 
the journey, in which we contemplate God in the natural 
faculties of the soul, per speculum et in aenigmate. But the 
natural soul, plunged wholly in the things of sense, is power- 
less to find within itself the image of God. Consequently 
this soul must be restored by divine grace: a new stage of 
the spiritual life. And this stage itself comprises several 
degrees, for it is now necessary to apprehend God no longer 
in his image, but in his unity, in his being, per se and a se. 
From this point a new degree will raise us to the contem- 
plation of sovereign good, or of the Trinity. It finally remains 
for us to rise above the world of sense, and above ourselves: 
this is rapture, or ecstasy, a veritable death of our person- 
ality “which leaves behind it all the processes of the mind.” 8 

This ascending progress, thus briefly summed up, supplied 
Ruysbroeck with the very framework into which he is to 
fit his theory of the mystic life; that too, not for any parti- 
cular treatise, but for the whole of his work. 

But, the objection will be urged, is not this representation 


1This image is found in Albertus Magnus: Vestigium . . proprie est 
impressio pedis in pulvere vel,via_molli (Summa, I. 3, 15). 
* Itinevarium, chapter I. 15. ® [bid., chapter VII. 4. 


226 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


prior to Bonaventura? Do we not already find it in the 
Pseudo-Dionysius and in Scotus Erigena? Doubtless we do. 
But we have proof, from analogies of detail, of the direct 
utilisation of Bonaventura by Ruysbroeck. The latter says 
of the man who practises humility that “all his enemies 
flee before him as does the serpent before the vine in bloom.” 1 
Now this image is found word for word and with the same 
application in Bonaventura.? We find it nowhere else, and 
it is well known that mystics use the same forms of speech. 
On the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whenever 
Ruysbroeck breaks away from the Summa of Saint Thomas, 
it is to follow Bonaventura. 

Much thought has been given to the meaning to be attri- 
buted to the expression: spark of the soul (vonke der sielen), 
which appears so frequently in Ruysbroeck’s works.* This 
expression refers to that property of the soul which Saint 
Thomas calls synteresis. To him synteresis or scintilla is at 
one time the apex of man’s intelligent nature,® at another 
the natural impulse of the mind towards the good to be 
done.* Bonaventura classifies the properties of the soul into 
three categories: sensus et 1maginatio ; ratio et intellectus ; 
intelligentia et synteresis." Thus we are dealing with a parti- 
cular property of the soul. And we find a confirmation of this 
meaning which is special to Bonaventura in chapter i. of 
the Itinerarium: “our soul possesses six powers: senses, 
imagination, reason, intellect, apex mentis and synderesis 
scintilla.” * Now this special meaning is also found in Ruys- 
broeck,® and he can have come across it only in Bonaventura. 


1 The Seven Degrees, chapter ix. 

2 Vitis mystica, chapter xlv. (Opera, t. VIII. p. 222). 

8 Cf. The Kingdom of God’s Lovers, chapters xv., xviii., xxv., and Bonaventura, 
Collationes de septem donis Spiritus Sancti (Opera, t. V. pp. 455-503). 

4 The Kingdom, chapter xxv.; The Spiritual Marriage, I. chapter i.; The 
Mirror, chapter vi. Meister Eckhart uses the same expression: Funken der 
Seele. 

>In Sentent., II. dist. 39, quaest. iii. art. 1. 

5 Summa, 1.4 quaest. Ixxix. art. 12; De verit., quaest. xvii. art. 2. 

7 Comment. in Sent., II. dist. 39, quaest. ii. art. 2. 

* F. Palhories, in Saint Bonaventure (1913, Paris), translates apex mentis by 
intuition, and synderesis by éclair de la conscience (p. 298). 

° The Kingdom, chapter xxv, 


SCHOLASTICISM 227 


$ 5. The result of this first comparison is that we can no 
longer isolate Ruysbroeck from the great Scholastic trend 
of thought. He did not, however, borrow much from it, and 
we cannot say of the Brabantine mystic what Denifle and 
Harnack say of Meister Eckhart: ganz von Thomas abhängig 

. auch sonst dass er das Beste thm verdankt. From the rich 
stores offered him by the imposing synthesis of Albertus 
Magnus and Saint Thomas, Ruysbroeck made his choice, 
only taking from it those elements which seemed to him 
likely to serve as a substructure for his own system. 

And so Ruysbroeck plunges deep into the Scholastic 
tradition. The trend of his mind was not towards mere specu- 
lation, consequently there was no need for him to go over 
the groundwork so splendidly exploited by his famous pre- 
decessors, a work which, after all, considering the object 
he had in view, could but be of a preparatory nature. 

Does this imply that, in the mystical and moral part of 
his work, he gave free play to his originality? No doubt this 
latter had full opportunity for expansion. But here too 
_ Ruysbroeck has chosen masters, finding them in the moderate 
Scholastic schools—with mystical tendencies—of the twelfth 
century: the schools of Saint Bernard and of the Victorines. 

But before studying these new influences we should ask 
the question: How are we to explain the influence exercised 
over Ruysbroeck by Albertus, the “great magician” of 
Cologne, and by Thomas Aquinas? 

The influence of the former is indubitable. And, seeing 
that Saint Thomas held a considerable number of the ideas 
of Albertus, it is difficult to say, in many respects, on which 
of the two Scholastics Ruysbroeck drew most. The influence 
of Albertus had already been suspected by Bohringer, but 
this learned Church historian did not proceed to verify 
his intuition. 

This latter would appear to be confirmed, first by a com- 
parison of the two systems, and secondly by the philosophical 
ground they covered. The two principal intellectual centres 

1 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, t. III. p. 394, note. 


228 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


of the fourteenth century are Paris and Cologne. The 
Flemish scholars, however, preferred Cologne, which was 
connected with the Nederlant by a highway passing through 
Liege. This road was continually being traversed by students, 
and books travelled no less than human beings. Now, at 
this period, the influence of Albertus Magnus was predominant 
at Cologne. Even prior to his death (1280) his teaching 
had supplanted that of Peter Lombard, which hitherto 
had prevailed throughout the schools. It was also in Cologne 
that there had grown up around Meister Eckhart the new 
mystical school, with which Ruysbroeck was undoubtedly 
brought into contact. The fact that we find, combined in 
one and the same doctrine, the revived Aristotelianism of 
Albertus Magnus and the Christianised Neoplatonism of 
Meister Eckhart, supports this theory. And we should regard 
it as proved if the texts provided any certainty on the 
matter. Unfortunately textual proof is lacking. A manuscript 
of 1657, described by Engelhardt, asserts that Ruysbroeck 
made the journey to Cologne, where he probably became 
acquainted with Eckhart, but in all likelihood this anno- 
tation is but a personal deduction of the copyist, who was 
perhaps struck by the resemblances between the works of 
the German mystic and the doctrine of Ruysbroeck. It would 
therefore be prudent to regard the journey to Cologne as 
possible, and nothing more. This hypothetical though not 
improbable journey should at all events be dated prior to 
1327, which was the year when Eckhart died. However it 
be, the combined influence of Albertinism and of Eckhart’s 
mysticism is revealed in the earliest works of Ruysbroeck, 
shortly after 1335. 

If we connect too closely Ruysbroeck with Scotus Erigena, 
we misinterpret the meaning of the revolution effected by 
the famous Dominican of Cologne. He was the first to bring 
the outer world within the domain of theology as a reality 
subject to investigation. This innovation we find in Ruys- 
broeck as one of the main buttresses of his system. Evidently 
Ruysbroeck no longer looks upon the world as does Joannes 


SCHOLASTICISM 229 


Scotus: a mirror wherein the divine beauty appears reflected, 
a symbolical writing to be interpreted by the spirit. The 
divine mark on this world, in the opinion of Albertus and 
his pupils, is at most a vestigium, a footprint on the sand, 
according to the well-known image. Now, what does this 
footprint tell us about the pilgrim? Nothing, except the fact 
that he has passed that way. Hence, if the divine footprint 
can adequately shape religious conviction, the science of the 
world remains complete and entire. The universe is a sealed 
book whose seals must be broken, whose pages must be read. 
And so the true theologian will be as fond of experiment as of 
speculation. Albertus was an experimenter above everything. 
Mineralogist, alchemist, botanist, physicist: he collected 
together a prodigious number of observations which he re- 
lated to the philosophy of Aristotle, though they were quite 
independent of the Stagirite. Now, this scientific basis is 
regarded by the speculative mystics of the fourteenth century 
as firmly established. It entered wholly into their work, and 
the reason why the rôle of the outer world therein is somewhat 
small, is because it was actually the intention of mystics 
to pass beyond the faint vestigium imprinted on this 
perishable earth. 

The first path [says Ruysbroeck] is therefore exterior and sensible; 
it consists of the four elements and the three heavens to which God has 


given suitable adornment. For him this constitutes a kingdom, though 
wholly exterior, one that offers but a faint and distant resemblance to 


his beauty.t 


Thus did mystics meet on their way two successive barriers: 
the confines of the outer world and the limits of speculation. 
What wonder that, on arriving at these two terms equally 
impenetrable to reason, they had recourse to a new mode of 
investigation, strictly that of mystical research? 

It is unnecessary to dwell longer on the influence of Saint 
Thomas. The special works of the historians of Thomism prove 
the extent of his influence and the fame he won during his life- 
time. There is no instance of a scholar’s apotheosis so general 


1 The Kingdom, chapter iv. 


230 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


as that which fell to the man who, from the outset, was 
called: “le grand bœuf muet de Sicile.” The very struggles 
that his doctrine called forth in the Augustinians made no 
impression on this fame. In vain did Etienne Tempier, chan- 
cellor of the University of Paris, in 1337, include in his 
condemnation of Averroism a score of Thomist propositions: 
the doctrine responded to the intellectual aspirations of the 
time but too manifestly to suffer from this condemnation 
and from the violent opposition of the Franciscans. From 
the fourteenth century onwards the authority of Saint 
Thomas almost exclusively dominates theological teaching, 
and the Summa replaces the Sentences of Peter Lombard. 
No wonder, then, at the powerful influence of this great 
master on Ruysbroeck. 

In our opinion, then, the links are clearly established 
which connect speculative mysticism with the Scholasticism 
of the thirteenth century. But for the latter, the former 
would be non-existent. Scholasticism supplies mysticism 
both with a philosophical tradition and with a dogmatic 
conception. Such a foundation, however, is not sufficient 
for the mystics: it serves them merely as a springboard 
from which to take a greater leap forward. 


III 


The predominant rôle accorded by Scholasticism to reason 
could not be accepted by all: this is why there are several 
currents circulating within the heart of Scholasticism itself. 
And the intellectualistic current never absorbed the mystical 
current, that “philosophy of the heart” whose brief and 
refreshing stream flows beneath icy formulae. And so it 
would be historically false to separate Saint Bernard from 
the Scholastic movement of the thirteenth century. The 
founder of Clairvaux belongs to Scholasticism through the 

1De Wulf has clearly proved that Scholasticism cannot be regarded as a 


homogeneous philosophy but rather as a group of systems. Introd. a la philosophie 
néo-scol. (Louvain—Paris, 1904), p. 57. | 


SCHOLASTICISM 231 


position he took up in the quarrel on the nature of universals 
and his famous struggles against Abélard and Gilbert de la 
Porrée. And yet this same Saint Bernard is the first to 
dethrone reason, or at least to assign to it a subordinate part. 

The identity established by the Scholastics between 
philosophy and religion as paths of investigation doubtless 
expressed a fine confidence in the powers of human thought. 
The starting-point, however, being wrong, could but lead to 
an impasse. And so Scholasticism knows nothing—or scarcely 
anything—of the joy that illumines the writings of the mystics. 
It represents the melancholy of a clouded sky, not the full 
clearness of the mountain-tops. Its work has justly been 
compared to the toil of Sisyphus, forever rolling uphill a 
huge stone which forever falls back again. Quaesivit coelo 
lucem, ingemitque reperta. 

Saint Bernard is the first representative of this intellec- 
tual scepticism. He looks upon philosophy as consisting in 
‘knowing Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Not that he denies 
the utility of dialectic; but he thinks he can succeed more 
surely by the practice of virtue and the intuitions of faith. 
He carries to its extreme consequences the famous pro- 
position of Anselm’s Proslogium: neque enim quaero intelligere 
ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. He says: nil autem malumus 
scire quam quae fide jam scimus. Nil supererit ad beatitudinem, 
cum quae jam certa sunt nobis fide, erunt aeque et nuda To 
him truth is the fruit of a great duty, nobly accepted. And 
therefore he abandons all restraint when he has to refute the 
intellectualistic method which Abélard defined as follows: 
dubitando ad inquisitionem ; 1nquirendo ad veritatem. The 
point of view defended by Saint Bernard at the Council of 
Sens in 1140 is actually that of speculative mysticism. By 
subordinating to practical life both the soarings of the spirit 
and the flights of contemplation, Saint Bernard keeps himself 
free alike from the pride of the one and the errors of the other.? 


1 De considerat., lib. V. chapter iii. 

* Quis enim, non dico continue, sed vel aliquandiu, dum in hoc corpore manet, 
lumine contemplationis fruatur ? at quoties corruit a contemplativa, toties in activam 
se vecipit (In Cantic., sermo lviii.). 


232 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


No wonder Ruysbroeck fell under the charm of this 
extraordinary moulder of men. The description of the monas- 
tery of Groenendael recalls the beginnings of the abbey of 
Clairvaux, and the two men offer striking analogies in 
character and in outlook. Both regarded as of like importance 
contemplation and manual toil, absolute submission and the 
fullest liberty, greatness and humility. Both fought strongly 
against depraved morals, and the degeneracy of the evangeli- 
cal ideal in the bosom of the Church. Besides, Saint Bernard 
on several occasions visited Belgium, where, in 1146, his 
presence caused unparalleled enthusiasm; if we are to give 
credit to the chroniclers, his journey was a veritable succession 
of miracles. But the influence of Saint Bernard upon Ruys- 
broeck was not simply that of a model of a good life. We find 
it very marked in all the writings of the Brabantine mystic. 

First we have the Scriptures restored to a place of 
honour. Not the Scriptures distorted by commentaries or 
allegories, but the living Scripture, an inexhaustible fountain, 
adapted to the needs of practical life. “The reason why I 
know the Psalms so well,” said Bernard, “is because I have 
pondered long over them.” His writings, like those of Ruys- 
broeck, are interspersed with Scripture texts in which he 
recognises three meanings: historical, moral and mystical. 

Why should it be otherwise with the Scriptures than with the things 
we use every day ? Does not water, to cite but one instance, perform various 
duties for our bodies? Similarly a Bible phrase, which offers different 
meanings, according to the varying needs of the soul, cannot be in- 
appropriate? 

Bernard frequented another school also, one with which 
Ruysbroeck was very familiar: nature. “What I know 
of the divine sciences and of holy Scripture,” he was wont 
to say, “I learned in woods and fields, by prayer and medi- 
tation. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the 
oaks.” To his pupil Henry Murbach, the future archbishop 
of York, the abbé of Clairvaux wrote: “Listen to a man of 
experience: thou wilt learn more in the woods than from 


*Vacandard, Vie de Saint Bernard, t. II. p. 300, 2 In Caniic., sermo li, 


| 
| 





SCHOLASTICISM 233 


books. Trees and stones will teach thee more than thou canst 
acquire from the mouth of a magister.” 

The real thought of Saint Bernard is summed up wholly 
in the necessity for man to know himself, to practise self-. 
discipline in order to rise from consideration to contemplation. 
The aim of the believer is to regain possession of his lost 
homeland (repatriare), to find again the image of God which 
sin has obliterated in his soul. For this work Ruysbroeck 
points out three paths or degrees, one leading to another 
without our being allowed to dispense with any of them. 
First consideratio dispensativa, which is nothing else than 
morality in action; then consideratio aestimativa, which sets 
reflection working; and lastly consideratio speculativa, which 
leads the soul to the confines of contemplation. 

Of God it is possible to have threefold knowledge: opinion 
(opinio), faith (fides), and knowledge (intellectus). True 
revelation, however, above all intellectual processes, can 
be received by the pure heart alone. Of itself intellectual 
knowledge cannot be condemned, but it leads to pride and 
melancholy. The only beneficent science is knowledge of our 
own heart. Besides, science can teach us nothing about 
God. Is it possible to define him? All we can say of him is: 
He is. He is, according to the four dimensions capable of 
being conceived by the human mind: length, height, breadth, 
depth. To this fourfold conception Bernard devoted one of 
his finest treatises: De diligendo Deo. Ruysbroeck certainly 
had access to this treatise. From it he borrowed his hierarchy 
of the virtues which is given with greater detail in another 
treatise of Bernard: De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae. The 
one supreme virtue is humility; man rises to the heights of 
contemplation the farther he removes from pride. The love 
of God thus presents four stages: man first loves himself; 
this amor carnalis is natural and instinctive, and so not 
culpable, so long as it does not degenerate into exclusive 
preoccupation. This love, extending to our fellow-beings in 
need, becomes social. “Then man, feeling his inadequacy, 
begins to seek God in faith and to love him as his necessary 


234. RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


helper. At this second stage he loves God not yet for God’s 
sake, but for himself on account of the benefits he receives.” 
Subsequently he rises to the love of God, so that God’s will 
may be done. Here it is the intrinsic goodness of God that is 
the motive for loving, though still without excluding his 
beneficence towards us. 


A prolonged sojourn is made in the third stage, and I do not know if 
any man in this life has ever arrived fully at the fourth, in which a man 
no longer loves himself except for God’s sake. If there are any who have 
experienced this, let them tell of it. For my part, I confess, it seems to me 
impossible. Without any doubt, this will take place when the good and 
faithful servant has entered into the joy of his Lord. .. . But even though 
in ecstasy the believer were to taste this sweetness, love for his wretched 
fellow-mortals would tear him down from those heights.! 

Ruysbroeck, in The Sparkling Stone, also distinguishes 
believers as servants (servi), hirelings (mercenariz), and sons 
(filit). The first are attached to God by fear; the second serve 
God in the hope of reward; the sons alone love him for him- 
self, and honour him as the Father who supplies all things. 

Regarding the comings of Christ into the human soul, 
Ruysbroeck is manifestly inspired by Saint Bernard, whose 
method of exposition he follows: “‘for this threefold coming, 
three things must be considered: the cause and the wherefore, 
the interior mode, and the exterior work.” 2 

Still, though contemplation—mystic union—constitutes 
the summit of the spiritual life, Saint Bernard and Ruys- 
broeck are too realistic to look upon this summit as an end 
in itself. Besides, rapture is an intermittent phenomenon, 
of short duration: cum autem divinius aliquid raptim et velut 
in velocitate corusct luminis tnterluxerit menti spiritu excedentt. 
Ruysbroeck frequently described this phenomenon in his 
work, but in chapter vu. of The Book of Supreme Truth he 
expressly quotes Saint Bernard as his inspirer. This chapter 


1 De dilig. Deo, cap. viii., x., xv. Cf. Ruysbroeck, The Spiritual Marriage, 
book I. chapters xiv., xxxv.; book II. chapters v., vi., viii.; The Sparkling Stone, 
chapters vi., vil., viii.; The Seven Degrees, chapters vi., vii., viii. 

2 The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapter ii. Cf. S. Bernard, Sermo in fer. 
iv. hebd. sanctae: ‘in hac igitur passione . . . tria specialiter convenit intueri: 
opus, modum, causam. Nam in opera quidem patientia, in modo humilitas, in 
causa chavitas commendatur.”’ These are the very three virtues which Ruysbroeck 
studies in the following chapters—iii., iv., v. 





SCHOLASTICISM 235 


is an almost identical reproduction of chapter v. of De 
Consideratione. 


As a tiny drop of water falling into a large quantity of wine seems to 
become diluted and disappear while assuming the taste and colour of the 
wine; as a piece of reddened incandescent iron becomes like the fire and 
seems to lose its original form; as the sunlit air seems transformed into 
that same luminous solar clarity, to such a degree that it no longer seems 
illumined, but itself the very essence of light; so all human affection in 
the saints must coalesce and become molten in order that it may flow 
wholly into the will of God. How indeed would God be everything in all 
things if there remained in man something of man? No doubt the sub- 
stance will remain, though under another form, another power, another 
glory (non est idem profecto consubstantiale et consentibile).+ 


True, these images are actually to be found in the Pseudo- 
Dionysius and in Scotus Erigena, but from the mere mention 
of the name of Saint Bernard there can be no doubt but that 
Ruysbroeck drew his inspiration from him, though all the 
time acquainted with the other two. 


You know how the air is bathed in the light and warmth of the sun, 
and how iron is so permeated by fire that beneath its action it does the work 
of fire itself, like it, giving heat and light. Similarly the air, if it were 
endowed with reason, might say: I give light and illumination to the 
whole world. Nevertheless each element retains its own distinctive nature; 
fire does not become iron, any more than iron becomes fire. But union 
takes place without intermediary, since iron is interiorly in fire and fire 
in iron, as the air is in the light of the sun and vice versa... . If material 
things can thus unite without intermediary, a fortiori God can unite with 
his beloved. . . . Neither does the creature become God nor God become 
the creature, as I have said regarding iron and fire... and this, according 
to Saint Bernard, it is ‘‘ to be one with God.’’? 


Elsewhere Bernard pictures this union as the consum- 
mation of mystic nuptials. And although this is a frequent 
image in writers of the Middle Ages, we may yet wonder if 
Ruysbroeck is not here still dependent on the abbé of Clair- 
vaux, who, we must not forget, is the author he most fre- 
quently mentions by his name. The three books of The 
Spiritual Marriage are scarcely anything else than a magni- 
ficent amplification of this theme, summarised by Saint 
Bernard in the following words: 


When the soul is completely purified it becomes nubile, and enters 
upon a spiritual marriage with the Word. . .. When, therefore, you see a 
1 Cf. De dilig. Deo, x. 28. 


? The Book of Supreme Truth, chapter viii. Cf. The Seven Cloisters, chapter 
xvil.; The Twelve Beguines, chapter cxxx, 


236 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


soul, having left all, unite with the Word with all its might, subject itself 
to the Word, conceive of the Word what it has to bring forth (de Verbo 
concipere quod pariat Verbo) ... know that this soul is the spouse of the 
Word (conjugem Verboque maritatam) and that it has entered upon a 
spiritual marriage with the Word.? 

What inclines us to think that Ruysbroeck is here directly 
under the inspiration of Saint Bernard is similarity of 
expression. In contradistinction to what one might think, 
Germanic speculative mysticism did not create a vocabulary 
of its own: it had but to draw upon the ample store of ideas 
and images in Romanic mysticism. Two centuries prior to 
Ruysbroeck, Saint Bernard had used, with reference to 
contemplation, such expressions as to lose oneself in God, to 
glide away into God: diffluere, effluere, dimanare. We find 
many instances in the De diligendo Deo of Saint Bernard: 

Te enim quodammodo PERDERE tanguam quis non sts, et omnino NON 


SENTIRE TE IPSUM, ét a te tpso EXINARIRI et pene ANNULLARI, Coelestis est 
conversationts ? 


Quasi enim ebrius, miro quodam modo OBLITUS sui et a se penitus velut 
DEFICIENS lotus perget in Deum et deinceps ADHAERENS ei unus spiritus erit.3 

All these expressions pass unchanged into the vocabulary 
of Eckhart, Tauler, Suso and Ruysbroeck. 

This state of spiritual adhesion, in which the uncreated 
and the created unite, Ruysbroeck calls a living life (levende 
leven).* Now, this is an expression peculiar to Saint Bernard: 
1b1 vere vivitur ubt vivida vita est et vitalis.® 

The influence of Saint Bernard cannot be disputed. 


IV 


As with Saint Bernard, the school of Saint-Victor holds a 
position intermediate between the great Scholastics and the 
speculative mystics. The Victorines expected to find ground 
for conciliation in the Platonist idealism as expounded by 
Saint Augustine. It was in this spirit that Guillaume de 

1 In Cantic., sermo lxxxv. 12. ? De dilig. Deo, cap. x. 

8 Ibid., cap. x. 15, 28. 4 The Mirror, chapter xvii. 


* Sermo xvii.; De modo bene vivendi : sermo de brevitate vitae. Migne, Patr. lat., 
t. CLX XXIII. col, 250; t. CLX XXIV. col. 1301. 





SCHOLASTICISM 237 


Champeaux, tired of Scholastic disputes, withdrew in 1108 
to the outskirts of Paris, into a small priory, of which to-day 
there remain but a few arcades in the court of the house— 
n° 20 rue Cuvier. This priory was a dependence of the abbey 
of Saint-Victor in Marseilles; its inmates were governed by 
the rule of Saint Augustine. 

In reality it was born of the state of malaise almost 
always occasioned by abuse of the speculative method. 

It is fitting [said John of Cornwall] to refrain from the distinctions 
peculiar to logic, when dealing with articles of faith...or at all events, 
if the syllogism prove too boisterous, let it be turned out of doors. . . 


The waters of Siloam flow silently along, and neither hammer nor axe 
was heard in the building of the temple of God. 


§ 1. The Parisian abbey exercised enormous influence not 
only on mysticism, to which it applied the Scholastic methods, 
but on culture in general. 

The splendour and renown of the school date from Hugues, 
a Fleming from the neighbourhood of Ypres. Born at the 
end of the eleventh century, Hugues arrived in 1128 at 
Saint-Victor, where his reputation gained for him the sur- 
name of lingua Augustini. In spite of his sarcastic remarks 
against the cupiditas scientiae, in spite also of his declarations 
as to the insurmountable limits of reason,! Hugues was a 
Scholastic in the full meaning of the term. Far from despising 
human knowledge, he urged upon his pupils to absorb as 
much information on all things as they possibly could, 
regarding cogitatio as the first step by which one ascends to 
God; in this respect he is a genuine Aristotelian. The universe 
has its duplicate in miniature within ourselves, and there is 
no true knowledge without comparison of these two revela- 
tions.? But interrogation of the universe also results in our 
experiencing how exceedingly vain and unprofitable are all 
things, save the love of God. On this point we are acquainted 
with the dialogue, of undoubted literary beauty, between 


1“Deus ab initio sic cognitionem suam im homine temperavit ut sicut 
nunquam quid esset poterat ab homine comprehendi.” De Sacram, I. 3, i. 

? “Sic respondent quae foris sunt lis quae intus videntur ad veritatem com- 
probendam.” De Sacram, I. 3, 10. 


238 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the soul and the reason: “What seest thou, Indaletius ? ” 1 
And so cogitatio must be succeeded by meditatio, whereby 
man comes into contact with the interior God, and by con- 
templatio, a supernatural process leading to the union of the 
created and the uncreated. 

The influence of Hugues de Saint-Victor on Ruysbroeck 
is evident. From him the Brabantine mystic borrowed in 
particular an entire page on the pre-existence of things: 

All things have received life and existence from the wisdom of God; 
therefore it is right to say that they were life in the place from which they 
drew life. . .. It was the exemplar of God, and the whole world was made 
after the image of this exemplar: this is the archetypal world in whose 
likeness the world of sense was made. We must not indeed say that in 
divine intelligence there are ideas which are below the Creator and above 
the creature; in God there is nothing that is not God. There cannot be 
diversity of property where nothing is except Being. In God, to be and to 


live is one and the same ae this is why he is a pure essence, without 
parts and without property.? 


Another proof of this influence lies in the analogy offered 
between Ruysbroeck’s Spiritual Tabernacle and the two 
allegorical treatises of Hugues de Saint-Victor: De arca Noe 
moralt and De arca Noe mystica; Ruysbroeck utilised the 
former at all events of these treatises, parallel with a work by 
Richard de Saint-Victor on the same subject: Benjamin major. 


§ 2. Whereas Hugues was the true inspirer of the school, 
Richard was its systematic theologian. As the spiritual son of 
Peter Lombard, Richard brings into his teaching the same 
orderly and systematic spirit that characterises the Liber Sen- 
tentiarum of his master. A far less prolific writer than Hugues, 
Richard, who became prior of the famous abbey in 1162, 
condensed his system mainly into two books, the latter of 
which alone interests us: De Trinitate and Benjamin major, 
de gratia contemplationis libri quinque.2 This latter work 
begins with the ideas of Hugues on the three ways that lead 


* De Vaniiate mundi, lib. I. (Migne, Patr. lat., t. CLXXVI. col. 705- 10). 

? Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Ev. Joan, cap. ii. Cf. Ruysbroeck, The Mirror, 
chapter xvii.: thus we possess a higher life, etc., commentary on St. John’s Gospel, 
chapter i. verses 3 and 4. 

# Migne, Patr. lat., t. CXCVI. col. 63 ss. The life of Richard, who was of 
Scottish descent, is not at all well known. 


SCHOLASTICISM 239 


to God: cogitatio, meditatio, contemplatio. Each of these 
stages, however, comprises a number of degrees, subdivided 
in their turn. In Ruysbroeck we find the entire division dealing 
with the third stage of contemplation. The first degree con- 
sists in admiration of the material world (ii. 1-6). This is 
followed by an intellectual process which consists in deducing, 
from contemplation of the universe, religious teachings on 
the wisdom of the marvellous Ordainer of the world (ii. 7-11). 
From the material world man passes to the spiritual universe, 
of which the former is but the reflection (ii. 12-111). At the 
fourth degree, man rises to the contemplation of spiritual 
beings and angelic creatures (iii.). After this, man is qualified 
to receive instruction by grace as to the real meaning of the 
Scriptures wherein is revealed the essential nature of God 
(iv. 2-5). Finally, at the sixth degree, man understands the 
mystery of the Trinity, which the reason alone would refuse 
to admit (iv. 6, etc.). Richard allegorically correlates these 
six degrees with the ark of Israel. The degrees are successively 
symbolised by the construction of the ark, the gilding 
(deauratio), the crown (corona), the mercy-seat, with the two 
cherubim on right and left, shading it with their wings 
(I. chapter xi.). 

This brief summary affords no adequate idea of the 
refined symbolism of our Victorine. It is extremely difficult 
in these modern times to understand this excessive allegorism, 
so highly esteemed in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the. 
Victorines were indebted to it for a good share of their 
popularity. Besides, this method, clearly encouraged by the 
Church, is as old as mysticism itseli—which found therein 
a means of expressing the inexpressible.? 

Students, who frequented the famous Parisian abbey in 
large numbers, took home with them all this variegated 
symbolism. It was probably through some such means that 
Ruysbroeck learned of the allegory of the spiritual tabernacle 
which he developed into a volume. But though he borrowed 


1 The Seven Degrees, chapters viii., ix. and xiv. 
* Clement of Alexandria speaks of the uvorux épunvela (Paid., IT. cap. viii.). 
Hugues de Saint-Victor says: sensus mysticus, 1.e. allegoricus. 


240 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


his subject from Hugues and Richard, he dealt with it quite 
differently. It is really a personal work, perhaps the one in 
which it is possible fully to apprehend the very special 
psychology of our mystic. 


If we wished, however, to explain Ruysbroeck’s doctrine 
by Scholasticism alone, to include it in the official orthodox 
doctrine, we should be forced to curtail it. 

Indeed, Scholasticism starts with a presupposition: it 
is the harmony between the data of reason and revelation, 
the latter all the time remaining inferior to reason. Truth 
thus comes into the soul only by an outer channel; Ruys- 
broeck’s starting-point is quite different: he presents the soul 
simultaneously with Deity. Hence the problem of Being, which 
lies at the very heart of Ruysbroeck’s doctrine, offers itself as 
an incessant development: the soul becomes the theatre of 
a real genesis wherein Deity, representing the first stage of 
the divine life, is about to beget the Trinity, and the soul to 
follow out its deification. As we see, such a conception does 
not harmonise with Scholasticism, which maintains above all 
else the distinction between the being of creatures and the 
being of the Creator. 

Scholasticism is a philosophy of reason. Ruysbroeck’s 
doctrine is a philosophy of the conscience. Ruysbroeck drew 
largely upon the Scholastic treasury because he found in it 
the scheme of a tradition ready at hand. But into this 
scheme he is to bring a very different doctrine, one that will 
owe its origin not to the Stagirite, but to Neoplatonism. 

This is what we now have to demonstrate. 





CHA PP ER Art 


NEOPLATONISM 


I 


We have attempted to characterise the relations between 
Ruysbroeck and Scholasticism, thus rectifying the current 
opinion which looks upon the speculative mysticism of the 
fourteenth century as a sporadic phenomenon, without any 
very consistent link with the past, as well as isolated in con- 
temporary mentality. We are confronted with a doctrine 
that is perfectly coherent, with a genuine philosophy, if we 
are to interpret philosophy as being an explanation of 
the world. 

Only those who neglect the sole existing basis of opera- 
tions ... the comparison of texts... still regard mysticism 
as a dense mass of undergrowth over-running an untilled 
soil. The critical editions of texts, that have rapidly increased 
in numbers during the past thirty years, will no longer allow 
us to depreciate to such an extent the intellectual value of a 
doctrine whose sturdy framework, in spite of being concealed 
beneath a special terminology, is none the less quite easy 
to apprehend. 

On the other hand, it would be equally erroneous to side 
with Denifle and Harnack and to regard speculative mysticism 
as a sentimental excrescence of Scholasticism. We think we 
have demonstrated that the influence of Scholasticism, 
however important, affects but a small part of the doctrine 
of Ruysbroeck. If one may say so, it supplies this doctrine 
with the stamp of time, by transmitting to it a contingent 
of scientific ideas, of Scholastic images, and of principles 


that can readily be isolated. This contact between Ruysbroeck 
241 


242 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and Scholasticism is precisely that which exists between a 
man and his age. It is henceforth evident that Ruysbroeck 
assimilated the general instruction of his times; he had other 
masters than the Holy Spirit beneath the shade of the sacred 
lime-tree. 

But let there be no mistake: Scholasticism is far from 
being a homogeneous system, lasting several centuries without 
the slightest modification. As has been well said: “‘regarded 
as a whole, the philosophical work of the Middle Ages may be 
compared to a mosaic of systems; no doctrinal unity can be 
discovered in its productions.” + And if there is one common 
characteristic in these many systems, it is to be found in the 
acknowledged supremacy of theology. This it is that con- 
stitutes the summit of the pyramid into which all other 
disciplines enter, like huge blocks. This is what is expressed 
by the celebrated fresco of Taddeo Gaddi in Florence: in 
the centre of the composition Saint Thomas is holding on 
his knees a copy of the Scriptures, open at the passage: 
propter hoc optavi et datus est sensus et invocavt et venit 1n me 
spiritus sapientiae et praeposut 1llam regibus et sedibus (Sap. 
vii. 7). Around the ‘Angelic Doctor,” like humble vassals, 
are grouped the symbolical figures of the cardinal virtues, 
of the seven liberal arts, of civil law and of canon law. 

Such is the view it is most fitting to entertain regarding 
Scholasticism: not confusion, but rather a hierarchical 
arrangement of knowledge. Hence, if there is no doctrinal 
unity, neither can there be a single master. Scholasticism is 
an eclecticism wherein are combined the most varied influ- 
ences, the most important of which is not Aristotelianism, 
as is generally imagined. 

When the first Scholastic structures were instituted, 
what was known of the Stagirite? Scarcely anything: a few 
extracts incorporated in the Compendium dialecticum of 
Cassiodorus and the translation of the Categories by Boétius. 
Is Aristotle, represented as a deacon by the side of Saint 
Thomas in the paintings of Gozzoli and Orcagna, better 

1 De Wulf, Introduction à la philosophie néo-scolastique, pp. 55, 95, etc. 


NEOPLATONISM 243 


known in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? In the 
early years of the thirteenth century the Jews bring from 
Toledo in Spain, where there lived a number of translators, 
the work of Aristotle. But is this really and truly the philo- 
sopher of Stagira? A twice-distorted Aristotle, translated 
from Greek into Arabic, from Arabic into Latin, watered 
down and mitigated by the Platonist or the pantheistic 
commentaries of Avicenna and Averroés, inlaid with caba- 
listic extracts. How can a distinction be made between the 
original and the work of the commentators? Gregory IX., who 
was extremely cautious, was in no wise deceived; scenting 
the germs of pantheism hidden beneath the pseudo-Stagirite, 
he twice refused the work. Saint Thomas, charged with the 
task of expurgating this Aristotle, makes a choice of every- 
thing capable of harmonising with the orthodox teaching,! 
in such fashion that he brings together in his work elements 
that are authentically Peripatetic and those that are in- 
dubitably Neoplatonic. 

In addition, these latter had already found their place 
in theological speculation. Up to the thirteenth century 
Scholasticism was almost exclusively nourished on Neo- 
platonism, chiefly through the writings of the Pseudo- 
Dionysius, translated into Latin by Scotus Erigena. The 
extraordinary fortune, too, of these writings was main- 
tained even after the enthroning of Aristotle as precursor 
Christt in rebus naturalibus. Dionysian literature is com- 
mented on in nearly all the schools; the abbey of Saint-Victor, 
in particular, is almost exclusively wedded to the diffusion 
of the mystical ideas of the Areopagite, and Saint Thomas 
himself, like his master Albertus Magnus, is almost as much 
indebted to the Pseudo-Dionysius as to Aristotle.? 

Apart from this there circulated, under the name of 
Aristotle, purely Neoplatonist writings such as a Theologia 
Aristotelis, taken from Plotinus, and a Liber de Causis, from 


2 Picavet, Esquisse... ., p. 210. 

? It may truly be affirmed that, if we had lost the works of the Pseudo- 
Dionysius, we should recover them all in these of the ‘‘Angelic Doctor.” 
Guignebert, Le Christianisme médiéval et moderne, p. 74. 


244 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the works of Proclus. Under the pontificate of Boniface VIII. 
the apostolic library possessed a summary of academician 
philosophy by Proclus,! and this clearly indicates the spring 
upon which Christian thought drew. As a matter of fact, 
Scholasticism is largely based on Neoplatonism, for the 
Aristotle of the Middle Ages is still a Neoplatonist. The 
genuine Aristotle, with his dualism of principles, his eternity 
of the world, his far-away God so completely disinterested in 
human beings, would not have found it easy to recognise 
himself in his image as perpetuated by the Scholastics. The 
dissimilarity was clearly visible at the Renaissance, when the 
humanists brought out the first critical edition of the Greek 
text. The Church then perceived that, in incorporating 
Pseudo-Aristotelianism, it had given refuge to its most 
dangerous enemy, the very one from which had proceeded the 
more or less pantheistic developments which the Inquisition 
had not completely succeeded in quelling. 

The result was that Ruysbroeck and the whole of the 
speculative mystic school, by adopting the traditional 
scheme of Scholasticism, found themselves already in 
contact with Neoplatonism. 

All the same, the contact was but indirect and wholly 
external. We are now about to see how Ruysbroeck is going 
to introduce purely Neoplatonist elements into these ready- 
made schemes borrowed from Scholasticism. 


IT 
What, then, is this philosophy whose potent vitality 


supplied nourishment for ten centuries of speculation? It 
has even been possible to say that the development of 
Christian theology could not be understood apart from 
Neoplatonism.? How is this extraordinary influence to 
be explained? 

Above all, in our opinion, by the identity of circumstances 


1 Ehrle, Historia bibliothecae pontificum romanorum, t. I. p. 121. 
? Rudolf Eucken, Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker (Berlin—Leipzig, 
1921), p. 107. Eucken calls Alexandria die Geburistatte der christlichen Theologie. 


NEOPLATONISM 245 


and aspirations which regards the Middle Ages not as an 
arbitrarily isolated period, but as the actual extension of 
the third century. The third century is the beginning of a 
period of spiritual awakening directly connecting Græco-Latin 
antiquity with modern times. And if philosophy voices the 
aspirations and needs which periodically manifest themselves 
in the human mind, with all kinds of modifications, it is worth 
while examining in some detail a century which left so pro- 
found a mark upon succeeding ages. Besides, Plotinus, that 
figure of towering genius, could not fully be understood were 
we not previously acquainted with the outer circumstances 
which largely determine the thought of a man. 


This was a dull and sombre period. Marcus Aurelius had 
left behind him a world resigned, one from which joy had 
fled. A few years suffice to generalise the feeling of pessimism 
expressed both by pagan and by Christian authors. “The 
world is old and corrupt; dissolution is at hand,” says Saint 
Cyprian,! his plaintive moan echoing the lamentations of 
Dion and Censorinus. 

This general sense of depression coincides with political 
vicissitudes. The emperors who succeeded Septimus Severus 
fell one after another beneath the dagger of the assassin; 
Decius was slain in battle against the Goths; after the 
assassination of Aurelian, civil war broke out, disorganising 
the army itself. It was with difficulty that the energetic 
Diocletian succeeded in restoring discipline for a time, before 
ceding the Western empire to Constantius Chlorus and to 
Galerius, and retiring to his garden at Salona. 

During the whole of the century Rome is like a simmering 
cauldron. The distinctively national element, however, is 
gradually diminishing. It is not only wars and banishments 
that are exhausting the old stock of the race; it is also the 
voluntary restriction of births. One would say that the people 
refuse to live any longer. There now came about a disturbance 
of equilibrium which was destined to have a most serious 


1 Ad Demetr., 3. 
T 


246 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


influence upon the material and moral life of the West: 
there came a moment when the foreign superseded the 
national element. In Rome the slave-system blended together 
the most diverse races, from the Orientals to the Germanic 
peoples, who were predominant in the army; the result 
being that the already expiring Greco-Latin civilisation 
was maintained, so to speak, by foreigners.} 

And yet this world, already in its decline, still sends out 
flashes of light. Whilst Longinus, Philostratus and Ulpian 
seem almost to revive the splendour of the past, the new 
spirit powerfully manifests itself in the Latins—Tertullian, 
Cyprian, Minucius Felix, Lactantius; and in the Greeks— 
Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Methodius. 

In spite of these great names retrogression is practically 
general in art and literature. Apart from law there is 
but one province of intellectual activity that really appeals 
to men, and that is religious philosophy. 

What was the cause of this almost exclusive orientation 
of the human mind? It is difficult to relate it to one cause 
alone. It may, however, be stated that the age, after finding 
its amusement in the jesting impieties of a Lucian, has 
become painfully aware of a state of spiritual barrenness. 
We see various philosophical and religious currents of 
thought begin to appear. While some of them attempt to 
awake the slumbering gods, others search within themselves, 
dimly conscious that true divinity lies hid deep within the 
human heart itself. Others again rise to the idea of the 
universal; all these deities, this people of semi-gods and 
heroes who had come to blend with the national gods of 
Egypt and Syria, Phrygia and Palestine, caused one to 
reflect that, behind these multiform manifestations, there 
was in reality but one and the same divine principle.? The 
most amazing superstitions thus found protection beneath 
a benevolent tolerance, in which scepticism and true religious 
aspiration were equally combined. 


1 Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus, vol. I. p. 31. 
? Cf. Jean Reville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères, pp. 41 ss. 


eS Or 


NEOPLATONISM 24.7 


All the same, no philosophy worthy of the name was 
discovered capable of expressing clearly these needs of the 
soul. The last representatives of Stoicism and Epicurean- 
ism preached distorted systems wherein phantasy ran riot. 
It is indeed the funeral oration of these two great schools 
that Plotinus pronounces when he writes: 

There are men who imagine that the things of sense are the first and 
the last. . .. They regard suffering as an evil and pleasure as a boon; they 
think the one must be avoided and the other sought. This constitutes the 
wisdom of those among them who pride themselves on being reasonable, 
like those ees birds which, having increased their weight by taking 
too much from the earth, are unable to fly aloft, though they have received 
wings from nature. . . There are others that rise above terrestrial objects, 
because their soul, endowed with a superior nature, detaches itself from 
worldly delights in order to seek something higher; but, incapable of 
contemplating the intelligible and not knowing where to alight after having 
left this earth, they come to regard virtue as inherent in those actions and 
common occupations the narrow sphere of which they had at first attempted 
to transcend.1 


There are many Neopythagoreans who had found at the 
court of Julia Domna a sort of princely academy; an account 
of the philosophy of this academy Philostratus presents 
in the highly idealised portrait he has left of Apollonius of 
Tyana; though, as a matter of fact, this reform rapidly 
degenerated into petty details of ritual. 

There is also Pythagorean Platonism—one of whose 
representatives, Numenius, inspired Plotinus— with which 
must probably be connected the Hermetic writings, edited 
and prepared at different periods. But neither can this vast 
eclecticism lay claim to the title of philosophy. 

As for Gnosticism, which Plotinus discusses, judging it 
by a few genuine thinkers, “the last survivors of a time 
that was no more,” ? it was scarcely more than a the- 
urgical occultism, where the rôle of the Christ, in the Coptic 
documents, for instance, is that of a singularly material 
thaumaturgus. 

Plotinus does not speak of the Christians, but he certainly 
was acquainted with them apart from this degenerate 


1 Enneads, V. iv. I. 
? De Faye, Gnostiques et gnosticisme (Paris, 1913), p. 469. 


248 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Gnosticism; it may have been owing to his intervention that 
Gallienus revoked his father’s rigorous edict and took under 
his protection the bishops of Egypt. 

At all events, it is certain that Plotinus, with his synthetic 
turn of mind, caught a glimpse in the new religion, as well 
as in the degeneracy of the expiring schools, of the univer- 
sally experienced need of redemption, of a saving contact 
between creature and Creator. 

The mystery religions especially, so widely spread along 
the shores of the Mediterranean, had thrown light on the 
decline of the human soul. This soul was sullied not by nature, 
but by the addition of an impure element similar to the slime 
that might soil a golden gem. The essential aim of religion 
thus appeared as a practice tending to release the soul from 
this impure element, i.e. to save it; in other words, to re- 
store its identity with the divine principle: 7 kpiyis  pvorui 
cepvorot rù Ociov.2 Hence the purificatory and initiatory prac- 
tices which guaranteed access to immortality. Similarly, in 
Gnosticism, where unity of doctrine no longer exists, the 
mutilated sects, which rapidly increased in the third century, 
have yet all one common character: initiation into expiatory 
mysteries or rites. Behind a complicated cosmology, some- 
times even behind unclean practices, this represents the 
drama of the soul that has gone astray in matter and seeks 
to return to God. But this God is so far away that he is in- 
accessible to human efforts alone. Consequently Gnosticism 
—or rather the Gnosticisms—multiplies its intermediaries, 
and though Christ, in the system, plays a primordial part, 
it scarcely differs from that of the Archontics and the Æons 
as understood by those great theorists of Gnosticism, Basilides 
and Valentinus; this it is that controls the redemptive pro- 
cesses, disposes of the seals of salvation, gives life to the 
sacred formulae. 

On the other hand, Pythagorean Platonism, along with 
Amelius, relegated the supreme God to an unapproachable 


1 Eusebius, Hist. eccl., vii. 13, 23. C. Schmidt, Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus 
und hirchlichen Christentum (Texte und Untersuch, Leipzig, 1901), pp. 12-13. 
? Reitzenstein, Die hellenistische Mysterienreligionen, pp. 110 ss. 





NEOPLATONISM 249 


distance. This inaccessible God is even called an idle king, 
BaouXeds apyds. The whole of the divine activity falls upon 
the second God, or Demiurgus, who, endowed with a dual 
nature (ärrés), governs both the spiritual and the material 
world. The soul, fashioned after the likeness of this Demi- 
urgus, is also dual: there is the rational soul, which is none 
other than the Good, and the irrational soul, Evil, or matter. 
Salvation is thus effected in the predominance of Good over 
Evil, in the union of the rational soul with the spiritual 
nature of the Demiurgus. 

If we free these beliefs from external modalities, what 
do we find at the bottom of them all? A grievous pessimism: 
man feels himself wretched, he sees the instability of his 
ephemeral state in a hostile world, and he suffers. All the 
schools culminate in the most decisive dualism: on the one 
hand, infinitely far away from mankind, an impassive God, 
the source of all good; on the other hand, the world, the 
domain of matter and evil. And man finds this irreducible 
dualism deep within his soul, in his barren strivings after 
perfection. Where is the old Hellenic ideal of beauty and joy? 
It has given way to Oriental pessimism.1 

This it is with which Plotinus is confronted. In the name 
of Greek philosophy he aims at reinstating human destiny, 
restoring faith and hope to man, and thus supplying a rational 
and optimistic conception of the universe. He wishes to pour 
out a goblet of delight before the thirsty soul, to show the 
beauty of the Cosmos to eyes that no longer saw, to teach 
man the way of happiness in glad obedience to the majestic 
order that controls the progress of the universe. To the man 
overwhelmed by his loneliness he will say: God is not far 
from thee. 


We are not separate from Being, we are in it.2 

Seek God with assurance, he is not far away, and you will attain to him: 
the intermediaries are not numerous. All that is necessary is to take from 
the soul, which is divine, the part which is most divine3 


1E. Bréhier, Le Sage antique, in Du sage antique au citoyen moderne, by 
Bouglé, Bréhier, Delacroix, Parodi (Paris, 1921), p. 45. 
2 Enneads, VI. xx. v. 4. SDE Vis. 


250 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 
The world, so depreciated by the philosophic and religious 


pessimism of the time, 


reveals the greatness of intelligible nature. If the world has a continuous, 
clear and manifold existence, all-pervading and shining with marvellous 
wisdom, how can we help acknowledging that it is a beautiful shining 
statue of the intelligible gods? . .. He who complains of the nature of the 
world, therefore, knows not what he does nor how audacious he is. Instead 
of blaming, we must gently submit to the laws of the universe, we must 
ourselves rise to first principles.? 

Here we find outlined that assuredly new conception of 
a moral order superimposed on the cosmic order and included 
in the same reality. To this conception Plotinus devoted his 
most noteworthy treatise: On the Beautiful (£nneads, I. 
book VI.). Thus evil appears to him as a negation, a privation, 
“in brief, we must not imagine that evil is anything else 
than what is less complete as regards wisdom, less good, 
following all the time a decreasing gradation.” ? 

Plotinus, then, regards salvation as conformity with the 
moral order by purification. A wholly interior purification, 
which may also be called a simplification in the sense that 
the soul should disburden itself of corporeal passions and 
adopt interior attitudes that conform with the intelligible 
world which has been glimpsed. And so Plotinus is to con- 
trast new men with degenerate Stoics and Epicureans, with 
joyless Gnostics. These new men, 


endowed with piercing vision, cast a penetrating glance upon the bright- 
ness of the intelligible world to which they rise, winging their flight above 
the clouds and darkness of this material plane. Then, disdaining things 
terrestrial, they remain in their heights and dwell in their real home, filled 
with the unspeakable joy of the man who, after long journeyings, has 
finally returned to his rightful home.3 

As we see, in all this Plotinus is eager to respond to the 
general religious aspirations of his times. He is the product 
of his age in every fibre of his being, and, however powerful 
and original his genius, it cannot be denied that the circum- 
stances in which he lived—both political and spiritual— 
exercised a visible influence on the trend and character of 
his philosophy. Doubtless genius is characterised by its 


1 Enneads, Il. ix. 13. + Tbta ALA teats, 8 Ibid., V. ix. 1. 


NEOPLATONISM 251 


power to react against inevitable nature and the influence 
of environment; still, it cannot altogether dominate these 
outer influences. The most independent genius belongs to a 
clearly circumscribed ensemble; it can attain to its end only 
in this ensemble and through the environment of which it 
is but a fragment. 

And so Plotinus shares with the whole of his epoch the 
religious unrest that characterises it. On the other hand, he 
is repelled by the solutions of the schools which lay claim to 
a spiritual hegemony; he is also quite as much opposed to 
the dramatic conception of the universe elaborated by the 
Gnostics as to the degenerate survivals of the Neohellenic 
schools. For the great problem brooding over the soul of his 
age, the soul’s restoration to its original state, Plotinus sees 
but one solution—obedience to the divine Order. 

On this basis Plotinus built up one of the finest doctrines 
that antiquity has bequeathed to us. It owes its marvellous 
vitality principally to a psychological analysis so definite 
and precise that, in certain respects, it has never been sur- 
passed.t It is not simply a religious initiation destined to 
develop the unknown powers of the human soul; it is also a 
genuine moral discipline, summed up in that declaration 
of the Enneads which might be inscribed on the pediment 
of the edifice: “To obtain a vision of Beauty and of Deity, 
each man should begin by making himself beautiful and 
divine.” ? This is optimism, and that of the purest; an opti- 
mism that is bountifully nourished by life itself, and quite 
different from the declarations of a Stoicism which finds 
a wholly intellectual joy in contemplation of the Cosmos. 
It is the echo of Plato’s voice, not of the voice of Epictetus. 

But Plotinus is still quite other than a Greek; a study of 
the origins of his thought reveals far more remote influences. 
Manifestly it was not Hellenism that led him to that scorn 
of the body which constitutes one of the stages of the religious 


1 Picavet, Esquisse, p. ix. J. Simon had already said that Plotinism is ‘‘the 
most audacious attempt ever made by human genius to fathom the mysteries 
of the nature of God” (Histoire de l’École d'Alexandrie, I. p. 65). 

2 Enneads, I. vi. 9. 


252 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


discipline he recommends. Nor is the idea that ecstasy brings 
us to the heart of knowledge more surely than all other means 
of knowledge, a Greek idea. It is more particularly the theory 
of intelligence as universal being that has specially attracted 
those who write on the history of philosophy. 

Now, it is these very elements that medizval Christianity 
revived, though in slightly different form. Regarding their 
origin, such writers as Ritter, Christian Lassen, Deussen E. 
Bréhier do not hesitate; they regard the identification of 
universal being with the self, to the suppression of all inter- 
mediary, as a strictly Hindu conception. The existence, 
indeed, of a stream of Hindu philosophy in Rome during 
the third century cannot be denied; this it was that, 
at the court of Julia Domna, the beautiful Syrian, gave 
birth to the romance of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus: 
the hero of Philostratus crossed India, and, on the banks of 
the Ganges, “discovered a wisdom superior to that of the 
Egyptians.” 

Moreover, Plotinus himself not improbably came into 
direct contact with these speculations. Indeed, Porphyry 
relates that Plotinus, “desirous of studying the philosophy 
taught among the Persians and that prevalent among the 
Hindus,” joined the army which Gordian had raised against 
the Persians. Gordian was slain and his army scattered; 
our philosopher even found it difficult to escape to Antioch. 
In any case, Alexandria, where Plotinus lived up to the age 
of forty, was the great commercial harbour on the route to 
India. It was assuredly the best centre of information about 
everything dealing with the mysterious empire of the Brah- 
mans. There can be no doubt but that Plotinus, when in 
this city, made inquiries regarding the things of India. 

However it be, by presenting the theory of identification 
as the keystone for his system, Plotinus distinguishes himself 
from all the philosophies of his age: even the philosophical 
relationship so frequently set up between himself and Philo 
the Jew appears to be justified only in secondary matters. 
The more Plotinus puts trust in human might, the more 


NEOPLATONISM SRE 


Philo despises it: 61: ürperrov 1d Ociov. The God of Plotinus 
is an ever-present God, de wéperrw; the God of Philo is 
only determinable by the intermediary of the creative 
Logos and of at least five other Jogoi, or powers. To 
Plotinus the pathway between man and God is free; Philo 
shares the ideas on salvation widely prevalent in his time 
throughout all religious circles regarding the necessity of 
mediatorial agents. 

The philosophical position, then, which Plotinus held 
at Rome, in the middle of the third century, is an entirely 
independent one. The teaching of his masters becomes so 
refined by his mystical temperament that quite a new aspect 
is given to it. Plotinism, instead of being a syncretistic 
eclecticism, is the original creation of a powerful mind. 

If we intend to designate Neoplatonism as a syncretism, 
we can apply this term only to the later Neoplatonism, that 
of Iamblichus and Porphyry. And perhaps it is because the 
doctrine of the philosopher of Lycopolis supplied quite a 
new response to the aspirations of the time that he asserted 
himself with extraordinary authority, and that he regained this 
authority afterwards whenever the circumstances or the needs 
happened to be identical with those of the third century. 

Now this is what took place from the fifth century on- 
wards: the dislocation of the Western empire, followed by 
the preponderance of the barbaric element over the Latins, 
while supplying the Western world with a new spirit, makes 
but little change in the general mentality, and, in certain 
respects, even intensifies the symptoms of degeneracy that 
mark the third century. 

It is still religious unrest that prevails. Saint Augustine, 
in spite of having worked out, largely upon the principles of 
Plato, a mighty system which is to constitute the framework 
of all theological thought, up to and including the Reforma- 
tion, in spite also of having attempted to check the extreme 
mobility of speculation with the dike of the principle of 
authority in matters of faith, was unable to stifle that spiritual 
disquiet working in the soul of the people. 


254 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


No sooner is the famous bishop of Hippo dead, than there 
seems to be an attempt to dry up the great fertilising streams 
which placed the new world in contact with the Greco- 
Latin past. First we have the condemnation of Origen by 
Justinian in 5431; then the barbarian invasion of a mentality 
that has nothing Christian about it except the outer polish 
spread over a pagan superstition; then the reconciliation 
to this state of things by the Church which, dissolute and 
debauched, never dreams of teaching the ignorant hordes 
that came to it, but baptises them, though well aware of the 
inferior elements which it thus protects with its authority. 
Thought—if there is such a thing during these troublous 
times—consists solely in setting up the orthodox belief, 
as it issued from the Council of Nicæa, against Arianism, 
with which the descendants of the Goths, formerly evangelised 
by Ulfila, were all more or less infected. Thus, hastily and 
grosso modo, there is realised an outer unity, but, beneath this 
thin surface, what we find is a new form of religious syncretism. 

What a difference between the syncretism of the third 
century and that of the sixth and seventh! In Rome, despite 
the torrent of superstitions, there was a vein of intense 
religious feeling, “‘a nobility and purity of sentiments which 
it would be puerile to disregard.” ? In the Christian West 
of the sixth and seventh centuries, syncretism is scarcely 
more than a blend of Germanic and autochthonous super- 
stitions * beneath which we vainly seek a genuinely religious 
aspiration. 

That which is everywhere dominant is ritual materialism, 
practices that are nothing else than a new form of theurgy. 
An entire pantheon of demi-gods, in whom alone the people 
—incapable of rising higher—believe, is organised under the 
guise of devotion to relics. The ancient gods are still wor- 
shipped, though by other names, and so we find the cult 
of trees and springs, sorcery, sacrificial practices and the 


1 The struggle against Origenism is studied in all its details by F. Diekamp, 
Die origenistischen Streitighkeiten in sechsten Jahrhundert (Minster, 1899). 

? Jean Reville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères, pp. 159-67. 

* Ch. Guignebert, Le Christianisme médiéval et moderne, p. 19. 


NEOPLATONISM 255 


entire pagan mythology permeating the Church in Christian 
garb. In vain does Gregory the Great multiply ordinances 
and condemnations. He dies, rejected and despairing, though 
his noble qualities save the honour of Christianity, once 
again menaced by its own victory. The reason why Chris- 
tianity did not then perish, stifled beneath pagan parasitism, 
is because a few learned and pious monks, dwelling under 
the shade of an Italian mountain, strictly bound to stern 
rules, and, in accordance with the apostolic vow, bent upon 
combining knowledge with holiness of living, became guar- 
dians of the treasure-stores of classic antiquity, and of the 
Gospel ideal. 

It was then that, with the aid of such lofty-minded 
civilians as Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, an attempt 
was made to remedy the widespread degradation of faith 
and thought. We have the creation of courts of justice, the 
rehabilitation of theology, moral reparation, unity of control 
both in the civil and in the religious domain under the form 
of a genuine theocracy. In the intellectual reorganisation, 
however, aimed at by Charlemagne, it is Neoplatonism that 
is to come to the fore. And finally we have Scotus Erigena, 
who brings with him into theology that lofty Plotinian 
idealism which henceforth is to feed the whole of the 
Middle Ages and supply modern thought with some of its 
strongest and most substantial elements. 


III 


It is not our object to study in detail the philosophy of 
Plotinus. Still, with the doctrine of Ruysbroeck in mind, we 
must try to discover what are the Neoplatonist elements 
which found their way into the system of our author, and 
along what channels. 


It is clear that Ruysbroeck was not himself acquainted 
with the writings of Plotinus, and that contact with Scholas- 
ticism could not have supplied him with that imposing 


266 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


contingent of Neoplatonist ideas which characterise the 
system of our mystic. We will take these ideas one by one 
and endeavour to find out along what lines they reached him. 


From the philosophical point of view, the two main 
trends of thought in the Middle Ages start from Saint 
Augustine and from Scotus Erigena. 

The rôle of Saint Augustine in Christian thought is un- 
paralleled. He it was largely who brought into the Christian 
patrimony the treasures of antiquity and supplied those solid 
frames into which the speculations of the doctors of the 
Church were subsequently fitted. He was also the inspirer 
of mysticism, as well as of Scholasticism. A powerful Church 
organiser, he none the less helped to elaborate the piety of 
a Luther, thus providing the Reformation with a vein 
which Scholastic disputes could not exhaust. He inspires 
Jansenism in the seventeenth century; and for the future 
his role seems as though it must equal, if not surpass, 
that now played by Thomism, more correctly called 
Neothomism. 

The influence of Saint Augustine over Ruysbroeck is 
evident. His name frequently recurs in the writings of our 
mystic, though he is sparing in mentions of this kind. This 
was the first influence to bring Ruysbroeck into contact 
with Neoplatonism. 


$ 1. The question of the Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine 
is one of those that have been most fruitfully discussed by 
scholars. If we are to believe Saint Augustine himself— 
books VI. and VII. of the Confessions—he was converted to 
Catholicism in 386, and retired a few days after that event 
to the villa of Cassiciacum to prepare himself for baptism by 
prayer and penance. Now, it was at Cassiciacum that he wrote 
the four following dialogues: Contra Academicos, De Beata 
Vita, De Ordine and Soliloquiorum libri duo. And these dia- 
logues are not the expression of the faith of a neophyte, but 
of an almost full-fledged Neoplatonist. A comparison of the 


NEOPLATONISM 257 


text of the Confessions —belonging to the latter years of the 
century, 387-400—with the text of the Dialogues, shows that 
in the former Augustine anticipated the real evolution which 
was to lead him to Catholicism. He was scarcely a complete 
Catholic before the year 400, and if conversion took place 
in 386, it was one from Manichzism or from academic doubt 
to Neoplatonism. 

If this theory is correct—and we think it is '—we see 
how important for the future of Christian thought was so 
prolonged an impregnation of the mind of the great teacher 
by the Neoplatonist philosophy. Neoplatonism entered as a 
constituent element into Augustinian dogmatics, for a man 
does not utterly divest himself of his former ideas unless 
some violent crisis disturbs the very depths of his being. 
Now, this crisis did not come about after the garden scene: 
having found peace in Neoplatonism, Augustine gently and 
naturally passed into Catholicism. Nor did he ever forget 
the masters who had filled with beatitude the calm retreat 
of Cassiciacum; he pays them homage in terms which pro- 
claim his indebtedness to them. He calls Plotinus, Porphyry, 
Tamblichus and Apuleius famous Platonists. He delights 
in acknowledging their perspicacity and ingeniosity.? They 
are his chosen philosophers, and, while criticising them, 
Augustine considers that they are learned men, rightly superior 
in glory and renown to other philosophers. These testimonies, 
purposely culled from the De Civitate Dei, are subsequent to 
the conversion of Augustine to Catholicism, consequently 
they are of even more convincing force than the homage paid 
to Plotinus in the third book of the dialogue Contra Aca- 
demicos (cap. xvill.); early enthusiasm is toned down and 
the heart inclined towards another doctrine, but the mind 

1 Up to the present it has had but few opponents: F. Worter, Die Geistesent- 
wicklung des hl. Aur. Augustins bis zu seiner Taufe (Paderborn, 1892), pp. 64 
ss.; J. Martin, St. Augustin (Les Grands Philosophes) (Paris, 1901), pp. 43 SS.; 
W. Montgomery, St. Augustine, Aspects of his Life and Thought, pp. 33 ss.; 
Ch. Boyer, Christianisme et Néo-platonisme dans la formation de St. Augustin 
(Paris, 1920), pp. 192 ss. 


*“Plotini schola Romae floruit, habuitque condiscipulos multos acutissimos 
et solertissimos viros” (Epist. cxviii.). 


258 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


has not forgotten the consolation found in the lofty specu- 
lations of Plotinus, of whom Augustine had said: 

The message of Plato, the purest and most luminous in all philosophy, 
has at last scattered the darkness of error and now shines forth mainly in 
Plotinus, a Platonist so like his master that one would think they lived 
together, or rather—since so long a period of time separates them — 
that Plato is born again in Plotinus. 

Saint Ambrose, whose teaching in Milan Augustine 
followed from the autumn of 384 to that of 386, does not 
seem to have played, in the conversion of the future bishop 
of Hippo, the important part attributed to him by Possidius.1 
Possibly he saved him from Manichæism, but he could 
not make the young rhetor profess Catholicism; he himself, 
in addition, by the allegorical method of interpretation of 
the Scriptures which he applied in the manner of Philo, 
strengthened still further the Platonist sympathies in his 
pupil. Subsequently he even congratulated him on reading 
the translation of Victorinus, “because all the reasonings of 
the Platonists tend to raise the mind to a knowledge of God 
and of his Word.” 

At this very time the drama being enacted in the soul of 
Augustine turned upon the problem of evil. The anguish 
caused by this problem had already driven him to Mani- 
cheism, the dualistic solution of which suddenly appeared 
ultra-simple. Then we are faced with the desolation of one 
who, after leaving the spiritual refuge which hitherto had 
sheltered him, finds himself on the open road, without 
having discovered the new shelter. This state of desolation is 
fully expressed in a line of the Confessions : et quaerebam unde 
malum et non erat exitus /* 

The problem of evil, it must not be forgotten, dominates 
and explains the entire theology of Saint Augustine: the 
theories of the Creation, of the Word, of original sin, of 
freedom and of grace, are immediately correlated with it. 
But where does Saint Augustine find the elements of this 


1“ Et factum est divina praestante opitulatione, ut per illum talem ac tantum 
anstistitem Ambrosium, et doctrinam salutarem Ecclesiae catholicae et divina 
perciperet Sacramenta.” Vita S. Augustint, in Migne, Patr. lat.,t. XXXII. col. 35. 

? Migne, Patr. lat., t. XXXII. col. 739. 


NEOPLATONISM 269 


imposing system which constitutes the solution of the 
problem of evil? We claim—and on this point we cannot 
challenge the ground of Saint Augustine’s testimony 1—that 
he finds them in Neoplatonism; consequently the Middle 
Ages, in adopting the Augustinian conceptions, adopts 
Neoplatonism. 

Let us now see how far this influence is exercised. The fact 
that it became less and less, according to M. Grandgeorge,? 
does not prevent a certain number of the main elements of 
Neoplatonism from having become constituent elements 
in the theological thought of the great Doctor of the West. 
M. Grandgeorge reduces these ideas to two: the doctrine 
of the absolute simplicity of God and the conception of evil 
regarded as a non-reality. On the question of the Creation, 
M. Grandgeorge considers that the independence of Saint 
Augustine remains entire and indisputable. We cannot be 
so categorical. 

First there is the idea of the Deity. 

The system of Plotinus is summed up in the book on the 
Beautiful (Enneads, I. vi.), which, as Porphyry tells us, was 
the first he wrote. Plotinus undertakes to reply to the 
question: What must one do to succeed in contemplating 
that ineffable Beauty which, like the Deity in the mysteries, 
remains hidden from us deep i in a sanctuary, and does not 
show itself without, so as not to be perceived by the profane? 
Let him who has the power to do so advance and enter this 
sanctuary, closing his eyes to the sight of things terrestrial. 
Now, there is identity between the good and the beautiful. 
Accordingly it is rightly said that goodness and beauty con- 
sists in the soul making itself like unto God, because he is 
the principle of ante . or rather, being is Beauty, non- 
being is ugliness. . Without genuine virtue God is but a 


1“ Procurasti mihi . . . quosdam Platonicorum libros ex graeca lingua in 
latinam versos.” Confess., lib. VII. cap. ix. 13; Migne, t. XXXII. col. 740. ‘‘Com- 
memoravi legisse me quosdam libros Platonicorum, quos Victorinus quondam 
rhetor urbis Romae, quem christianum defunctum esse audieram, in latinam 
linguam transtulisset.”’ Confess., lib. VIII. cap. ii. 3; Migne, t. XXXII. col. 750. 

2 St. Augustin et le Néo-platonisme, pp. 152-3. 


260 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


word.! But in this initiation, on the one hand, God must 
remain absolute perfection; on the other hand, there must 
be identity of nature between God and man: rj Qeorépge pices 
ovyyevts 1 YuxN Kal THAD.” 

Saint Augustine does not say anything different. His 
treatise De beata vita is wholly given up to proving that 
happiness is nothing else than the possession of God by 
beauty and truth. Make thyself beautiful, Plotinus repeats 
again and again. And Saint Augustine echoes the saying in 
the words: “when the soul is composed and orderly, when it 
has made itself harmonious and beautiful, it will dare to 
contemplate God, the source whence flows all truth and the 
Father of truth. 

Such a discipline indicates that Deity, capable of being 
attained only by a special contact (voepds ébalérôu, says 
Plotinus), is superior to all determination and all thought. 
This is why it can be called only the One (73 &), Being (rù 6v), 
the Limitless (73 depov); to come nearest, therefore, to an 
adequate notion of Deity, it is fitting to proceed in negative 
fashion and ask ourselves not what God is, but what he is not. 

This utter simplicity of God is again one of those ideas 
on which Saint Augustine is glad to dwell. In Sermo CXVII. 
he gives us one of those wonderfully striking phrases in which 
he excels: Sz: entm comprehendis Deum, non est Deus. And 
so, Deity, in its essence, both in the case of Plotinus and in 
that of Augustine, is inapprehensible, incomprehensible, in- 
expressible. It eludes thought (éréxewa voñoews) : non possit penuria 
sermonis humant quavis oratione vel modice comprehendt.* 

Still, how is man to come in contact with the Unknowable? 

We know that Plotinus, in answering this question, sets 
up a rational and necessary bond between all the forms of 
being. The one being perfect, acquiring nothing, having 
neither need nor desire, superabounds, so to speak, and this 
superabundance produces a different nature of being.® As 


Nbnneads; (1. vic 6: Linieomal ix. 145) VV to: 

2 Jbid., IV. vii. 10. 

3 De ordine, lib. IT. cap. xix. No. 51; Migne, t. XXXII. col. 1019. 
4 De Civit., lib. IX. cap. xvi. & Ibid. Vs 1.6. 


NEOPLATONISM 261 


fire radiates heat, and snow cold; as every organic being, 
immediately on attaining to its full development, produces 
its like; so the Perfect, which is also the Eternal, produces 
from the superabundance of his perfection that which, like 
himself, is eternal and good. Thus it is that the One produces 
Intelligence (Noës). “Intelligence is the word and the act of 
the One... when that which begets is supremely perfect, that 
which is begotten should be so closely united with it that it is 
separate only in respect of being distinct therefrom.” ! 

As M. Bréhier has shown,? the notion of Intelligence, in 
Plotinus, is far from being homogeneous: now it corresponds 
to Platonist ideas, then again it constitutes a world apart, 
the xocpos vonrés; and finally it images a stage of the spiritual 
life. Here we have to consider it only as a cause, for 
it is in this aspect that Saint Augustine has adopted it when 
he gives it the name of intelligible truth, synonymous with 
the Word. 

Regarded as cause, Intelligence, says Plotinus, contains 
the ideas, images or paradigms of all that exists. In it is found, 
first of all, the idea of the world in its ensemble or universal 
archetype; then come general ideas, such as that of man 
per se; and lastly particular ideas, for instance, the idea of a 
flower, a mountain, etc.? Now this rôle played by the In- 
telligence of Plotinus is the same that Saint Augustine attri- 
butes to the Word: In Verbo Patris sunt omnia quae creantur 
etiam antequam creentur, et quidquid in tllo est vita est et vita 
utique creatrix.* And again: Antequam fierent res, apud Deum 
erant eomodo quo sempiterne atque incommutabiliter vivunt 
et vita sunt, facta autem eo modo, quo unaquaeque creatura in 
genere suo est 

An important difference must here be noted, however, 
between the second Plotinian hypostasis and the Word of 
Augustine. Intelligence, being immovable, cannot be placed 
in direct relation with the world of sense. As the One super- 


1 Enneads, V.i. 6. 

* La philosophie de Plotin, in Revue des Cours (1922), pp. 157 SS. 
D'Enneads, V:119 0,17; Visvilw2. 

# De Gen. ad lit., Il. 6, 12: eld: No IS" 33. 


262 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


abounds into Intelligence, so Intelligence superabounds into 
the third hypostasis, the Soul of the world (5 #uxÿ roi 
kérpov) or universal soul (5 Yvyx7 6An). This latter is in reality 
the begetting power. The Soul is acquainted with the para- 
digms contained in Intelligence and derives therefrom its 
own processes. It organises matter according to the order 
which it has contemplated in Intelligence; thus it is strictly 
 yevvmrux dx. From this procreative soul which organises 
the world in its ensemble there afterwards emanate particular 
souls, each of which, according to its degree of perfection, 
organises a portion of matter. Creation thus pursues an order 
of progressive degradation.! 

The Word, the second hypostasis in Augustine’s system, 
is superior to the Intelligence of Plotinus in that its creative 
power acts direct upon the world of sense; it becomes subject 
to movement by an incomprehensible mystery2 

Still, the Word, thus determined, goes through the same 
processes as those attributed by Plotinus to the Soul. See once 
more on this point book II. of the treatise De libero arbitrio, 
where Saint Augustine gives a lengthy explanation of the co- 
hesion of the created world, the manifestation of the original 
unity through the agency of the Word or of creative Truth. 

The interversion of rôles between the second and the 
third hypostasis naturally leads Augustine to attribute to 
the third hypostasis, the Holy Spirit, an altogether special 
activity, relating not to the descending movement which 
proceeds from the One to man, as with Plotinus, but to the 
ascending movement which leads man to God. The rôle of 
the Holy Spirit is exclusively religious, so to speak: it con- 
sists in remitting sins and thus allowing of purification. 

With this reservation, Saint Augustine is at one with 
Plotinus in his theory of the return to God: ériorpobi. 

Man is the reflection of the divine Triad, Plotinus had 
said; this is a theme that Augustine developed with a wealth 
of language which the Scholastics could not surpass. 


1 Enneads, V.i. 2; III. v. 6; IV. viii. 6. 
+ De Trinut,, XV. vii. 12; AV. 14, 23. 


NEOPLATONISM 263 


Books [X. to XV. of De Trinitate consist almost entirely 
of analogies which Saint Augustine sets up between the 
Trinity and the created world. The human soul thus reflects 
the Trinity in its three faculties: mens, notitia, amor, or again, 
in memory, intelligence, will. And so we are dealing with 
a moral discipline which Plotinus calls éo.s and Saint 
Augustine purification. 

Retire within and examine thyself [says Plotinus]. If still thou dost 
not find beauty there, do like the artist who strikes away and removes, 
refines and purifies. . . . Remove from thy soul all that is superfluous, 
correct everything that is not upright, purify and illumine what is obscure, 
and cease not to perfect thy statue until Virtue shine in thine eyes. . . 
When thou no longer encounterest in thyself any obstacle which prevents 
thee from being ove, when nothing alien any longer debases the simplicity 


of thine inmost essence . . . then look attentively, for only through the 
eye which then opens within thee canst thou perceive supreme Beauty. 


This discipline is a simplification of the inmost being by 
a process of progressive divesting, drAwois. To seek God out- 
side of this simplification is to court deception: we shall find 
the reflection of God, not God himself: dAda où y 8 érépur 
aitd dpar ei de ph ixvos dv ious, odk adrd.” 

Now listen to Saint Augustine: “The multitude of things 
from which we must flee is not that of men, but the host of 
everything the senses reach.” 3 The obstacle existing between 
man and God is the mass of sense-images: et abduxit cogita- 
tionem a consuetudine, subtrahens se contra dicentibus turbts 
phantasmatum.* The soul should therefore proceed to its 
adornment by stripping itself bare: “when it has made itself 
harmonious and beautiful, it will dare to contemplate God, 
the spring from which flows all truth.” > That is the interior 
God which the oculus animae alone is able to behold. He alone 
beholds him who becomes ever more like him: S2 ergo 
Deo quanto similior, tanto fit quisque propinquior, nulla est 
ab illo alia longinquitas quam ejus dissimilitudo. This is the 
doctrine of Plotinus himself; the borrowing is all the more 
probable seeing that the preceding passage is but a trans- 

1 Enneads, I. vi. 9. 3 Jbid., V. v. 10. 


3 De ordine, I. ii. 3. 4 Confess., lib... VIE. cap. xvii. 23. 
5 De ordine, II. xix. 51. ® De Civit., lib. IX. 17. 


264 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


lation of the Enneads: Fugiendum est igitur ad charissimam 
patriam et 1b1 pater et 1b1 omnia.} 

Frequently Augustine describes the union of the soul 
with God in Neoplatonist terms. 


God is the source of beatitude, the end of our desires. Attaching our- 
selves, then, to him, or rather, re-attaching ourselves instead of detaching 
ourselves from him to our misfortune, we tend towards him in love, 
in order to find rest in him and—by possessing perfection—to possess 
beatitude. The one sovereign good, indeed, is nothing else than union with 
God; it is by apprehending him, so to speak, in a spiritual embrace,” that 
the soul becomes fruitful in true virtues.3 

A few lines farther on Saint Augustine recognises how much 
in this conception is due to Plotinus: “This vision of God, 
indeed, is that of a Beauty so perfect, so deserving of love, 
that Plotinus does not hesitate to declare that, lacking it, 
though abounding in other blessings, one is necessarily 
unhappy.” * | 

Saint Augustine is also a Neoplatonist in his conception 
of evil regarded as a deprivation: Nzh1l aliud est malum quam 
corruptio vel modi, vel specter, vel ordinis naturalis. ... Non 
est malum nisi minut bono.® If evil were a substance, it 
would not be evil, for all substance—the reflection of God— 
is good. Goodness and being coincide; evil is the deprivation 


of a good thing.® 


In conclusion, we find the influence of Neoplatonism on 
Saint Augustine: first, in the doctrine of a God absolutely 
simple in his essence and unknowable; second, in the doctrine 
of the Word, the second divine hypostasis charged with 
creation; third, in the doctrine of exemplarism or divine 
ideas; fourth, in the doctrine of the dual stream which 
proceeds from God to man and from man to God; fifth, in 
the conception of evil envisaged as a minutio bont. 


1 Enneads, V. 1x. 1. 

2 Plotinus says: ‘It suffices to attain thereto by a sort of intellectual contact 
(voepGs épapdcbar).”” Enneads, V. iii. 17. 

3 De Civit., lib. X. cap. xiv. 

4 Jbid., lib. X. cap. xvi. Cf. Enneads, I. vi. 7. 

° De natura bont, iv. 17. 

® Confess., VII. xii. 18. Cf. De Cavit., lib. XI. 22; Soltlog., I. i. 2; Enneads, 
D PEN ol À MON 


NEOPLATONISM 265 


§ 2. Now these doctrinal points are also to be found in 
Ruysbroeck. Clearly it is not possible to say always exactly 
whether these ideas of Ruysbroeck come direct from Saint 
Augustine or from thinkers who appropriated them subse- 
quently, such as Scotus Erigena, Saint Bernard, the Vic- 
torines, or the Scholastics. All the same, the pronounced 
influence of the ideas that originated in Scotus Erigena, so 
different from the Augustinian theology, makes it possible to 
attribute the Neoplatonist ideas—which are not to be found 
in Scotus Erigena, though we discover them in Augustine— 
to the direct or indirect influence of the great bishop of Hippo. 

What we first find in Ruysbroeck of Neoplatonist Augus- 
tinianism is the conception of the One-God, whose essence 
is absolute simplicity and of whom one can say more truly 
what he is not than what he is, for he is above all positive 
definition. This God would consequently be unknowable did 
not man possess within himself an element of divine origin, 
a spark of God: the soul. As each thing tends to return to its 
source, the soul turns naturally towards God. In this simple 
unity, which is the essential form of God, is found the Arche- 
type of all things. God, determining himself by emanation, 
radiation or effigy,’ the Ideas that are in God will manifest 
themselves in decreasing order, so that created things will 
be less and less perfect the greater the distance separating 
them from their Archetype. On the other hand, as divine 
Unity is manifested in the form of three hypostases, this 
trinity will also be reflected in the created world: thus the 
soul will be endowed with three—among other—faculties 
that will each enable it to rise to the divine hypostasis with 
which it corresponds. 

As the One is perfection, if man would return thereto, 
would apprehend and contemplate God, he should endeavour 
to attain perfection. The separation from God, in which man 
finds himself naturally, is not evil; evil indeed possesses no 


1 The image of the seal, which Augustine passed on to medieval philosophy, 
after borrowing it from Plotinus, is also found in the Gnostics (rémos, ékuayetor, 
oppayls). We also find in Valentinus the conception of degradation by separation. 
Clement of Alexandria, IV. Strom., chapter xiii. 89, 90. 


266 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


reality per se, since it is in the nature of God to manifest 
himself in differentiation of potency. What we call evil is 
only a lower degree of being. But sin—which is quite different 
from evil—is the voluntary acceptance of this lower state 
wherein man delights. The idea of the Fall, which Ruysbroeck 
here introduces, but slightly modifies this conception. The 
Fall is the result of the choice made by Adam between unity 
with God and life in the world of sense. He who obtains his 
enjoyment solely from the world of sense confirms for himself 
the sin of Adam; and if he continues in this state, he goes 
of his own free-will—not by God’s decree, for God cannot 
determine ill-fortune—to final downfall and ruin. He effects 
his own annihilation. | 

These irreducible sinners, however, are few. Most men 
have a feeling of their divine origin, and this feeling is kept 
alive by the Holy Spirit. Thus comes into being a higher life, 
the first stage on the return path. This higher life is the 
gradual recovery of the mastery of the mind over the senses, 
a stripping off, a simplification. In proportion as man breaks 
away from his senses, in like proportion is he enriched with 
the gifts of the Holy Spirit. When his liberation is com- 
pleted he may unite with—though not yet behold—God; 
he may unite with the Son, the second hypostasis. There 
still remains for him to unite with Deity in its essential 
oneness; this constitutes vision or ecstasy, which can doubt- 
less come about in some instances even in this life, though it 
is really complete only in saints whom death has robbed 
of their physical body. 

Although the theory of ecstasy came to Augustine largely 
from Plotinus, in the case of Ruysbroeck it includes develop- 
ments which are mainly derived, as we shall see, from the 
Pseudo-Dionysius and from Scotus Erigena. 

This is the second Neoplatonist current which we must 
now study with reference to Ruysbroeck. 


NEOPLATONISM 267 


IV 


Apart from the Plotinian elements which Saint Augustine 
transmitted to Christian theology, a parallel Neoplatonist 
vein nurtures mediæval philosophy. This vein is connected 
by the Pseudo-Dionysius not with Plotinus, but with Pro- 
clus, who is thus really the father of medieval mysticism. 


§1. Proclus is the final and glorious light of Greek 
philosophy. 

He taught at the school of Athens which the Antonines 
had founded to secure the regular transmission of the same 
principles down the ages; the masters of this veritable 
university were for this reason called &aëéxo. None of them 
was better qualified than Proclus to effect this vast philo- 
sophical synthesis. His great learning made him as well 
acquainted with foreign mythologies as with the national 
pantheon. He was at the same time a philosopher, an astro- 
nomer and a geometrician. All this knowledge, however, he 
regarded from the religious point of view; he wished to be, 
as he expressed it, the universal hierophant, roi 6108 kéruou 
icpopdvrns. Thus gifted, Proclus worked for the systema- 
tisation of Neoplatonism; because of his rare powers of 
co-ordination he came to be called the Saint Thomas of 
Alexandrian mysticism. 

Porphyry had already attempted this synthesis in his 
Sentences, though without setting up the logical bond which 
united to one another the various parts of the Plotinian 
system. Proclus, on the other hand, in his treatise Xrouxewois 
Geohoyixh, by applying the geometrical method to the ex- 
pounding of theological ideas, succeeded in constructing 
an imposing edifice of harmoniously combined parts which 
enabled Neoplatonism to survive the closing of the school 
of Athens. 

The principle of Proclus is as follows: the object of life 
being sovereign good, the true philosopher should rise from 
the things of sense to ideas; he has yet to reach the intelligible 


268 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


and distinct causes of ideas. Granted the principle, what will 
be the method? First of all Proclus modifies the Plotinian 
conception of the One, a negative conception, seeing that, 
in order to attain the One, it was necessary, as it were, to 
empty creation of its positive content. To the mind of 
Proclus, the One, posited alone, in absolute immobility, does 
not appear to explain the many. To explain the many, and 
also the various phenomena of the world and of thought, 
Plotinus had shown the One as emanating from a first 
hypostasis, Intelligence, and this, Proclus thinks, creates an 
impassable gulf between God and Intelligence. 

To evade the vacuity of such a conception Proclus first 
identifies the One with the Good, which is a positive reality; 
now, as the character of the Good is to share itself out, the 
One is capable, through its identification with the Good, of 
producing the many. Here, in the distinction made by 
Plotinus between the One and Intelligence, Proclus inserts 
an analogy of the Pythagorean theory of numbers: his triadic 
theory, expounded in the Platonician Theology, by virtue 
of which both the spiritual and the material worlds are sub- 
ject to the law of triplicity. Being is thus divided into three 
moments: trap&is, rpdod0s, errr pod}. These moments take place in 
the infinite, the finite and the mixed. All emanations, which 
afterwards succeed one another degressively, contain each 
in their turn three terms, and each of these terms con- 
stitutes a new triad, itself also capable of manifesting in 
the threefold aspect of the infinite, the finite and the mixed. 
Thus we have in succession, starting with the One, the triad 
of being, or the Father, comprising the intelligible unities; 
the triad of intelligible life and of eternity, the Mother; 
and lastly, the third, corresponding to the Intelligence of 
Plotinus, rpids voepd.t 

Then come the triads that relate to the Soul, each 
also comprising three terms: the demiurgic triad set in 


1 Hegel, who was greatly inspired by the system of Proclus, approves of him 
for placing intelligence last. Lindsay, Le Système de Proclus, in Revue de Méta- 
physique et de Morale (1921), p. 505. 


NEOPLATONISM 269 


charge of creation, the conservative triad, the vivifying or 
zoogonic triad. 

Lastly, the triad of the anagogic powers has for its aim 
to restore all things to Unity by a threefold movement. The 
world of sense also possesses powers of its own: angels, 
daimons, genii, heroes, who serve as intermediaries between 
the higher world and the world of sense. 

Such, in brief, is the conception of Proclus. We have dwelt 
upon it because it is to be adopted by the Pseudo-Dionysius, 
and, through him, to pass into Christian mysticism along 
with the conception of the return to Unity, which differs 
but little from that of Plotinus. 

All that comes forth from several causes returns by an equal number 
of intermediaries. The return takes place for the same causes as the going 
forth .. . one must return first to the intermediary, then to that which is 
immediately superior to the intermediary.! 

This retrogression comes about in all domains. In that of 
knowledge the soul surmounts in succession the entire series 
of intellectual processes: opinion, reasoning, analysis, syn- 
thesis, science, comprehension, enthusiasm. Finally it reaches 
the last, ecstatic knowledge: 


There is a mode of knowing that is above intelligence, a divine mad- 
ness. The like alone knows the like; sense, the sensible; intelligence, in- 
telligence; the one, that which is one. Let but the intelligent soul tran- 
scend intelligence, and it forgets itself and the rest. Adherent to unity, it 
therein peacefully dwells, closed to all knowledge, mute and silent... 
this, my friend, is the divine working of the soul: he who is capable of it 
is set free from the bonds of authority; he is sheltered, not only from 
exterior but also from interior impulses: he is made God.? 


This passage is characteristic; we find in it not only the 
germ of the deificatio of Meister Eckhart and of Ruysbroeck, 
but even the principle which the Brethren of the Free Spirit 
alleged in justification of their spiritual anarchy and their 
various excesses. 


§ 2. In 529 the school of Athens was closed by an edict 


1 Instit. théolog., chapter xxxviii. 

2 The original text of this passage is lost; we find only a Latin translation of 
the Middle Ages, collected by V. Cousin: Procli philosophi platonici opera inedita, 
Prima pars : de Providentia et Fato et eo quod in nobis, pp. 171-2. 


270 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


of Justinian. The last of its masters, Damascius, Isidore of 
Gaza, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, driven from their posts, 
were ‘compelled to seek refuge with Khosru, the king-philo- 
sopher. The spirit of the school, however, could not be de- 
stroyed. It simply assumed a Christian garb, and afterwards 
spread, with amazing vitality, first in the Eastern Church 
through the instrumentality of John of Damascus and Jean 
Philopon, and then into the Western Church, which Saint 
Augustine had already brought in contact with Neoplatonism. 

Indeed, a few years after the closing of the school of 
Athens, there appeared a series of writings which, though 
seemingly Christian, are none the less clearly Platonist 
in essence.! These writings were issued under the name of 
Dionysius, a member of the Athenian Areopagus who, 
according to Acts xvii. 34, had been converted by Saint Paul. 

From the outset there began a controversy—one that is 
not even yet ended—as to the personality of the author. The 
first attribution of these writings to the Areopagite was made 
at the Conference of Constantinople in 533, by the Monophy- 
sites of Severus, who were disinclined to find the doctrine of 
the new books suspected by the orthodox. 

As a matter of fact, the author really is named Dionysius, 
though nowhere appearing as the Areopagite. Furthermore, 
Christianity shows itself in his writings only as a kind of 
veneer. [he terminology is Christian; but the subject-matter 
is not.? This contrast can be explained by the historical 
circumstances. It is a noteworthy fact that these mysterious 
writings appear just at the moment when the school of 
Athens was closed. Their doctrine is that of Proclus but thinly 
veiled; Proclus and his treatise De malorum subsistentia are 
quoted. When the author ventures upon the domain of 


1On the Celestial Hierarchy ; On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ; On the Divine 
Names ; On Mystical Theology, along with ten Letters, to which subsequently 
were unduly added three apocryphal epistles—to Apollophanes, to Timothy and 
to NET ese now exist only in Latin. 

“Der Anschluss an Proklus erklart uns auch die befremdende Erscheinung 
ak D. ... gar nichts spezifisch Christliches ins Feld fiihrt.’”’ H. Koch, 
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in seinen Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus und 
Mysterienwesen (Mainz, 1900), p. 91. 


NEOPLATONISM 271 


Christian dogmatics, he refers to his Ocoloyikai iroruréres, 
a treatise which he alone mentions and no trace of which 
has been found anywhere, so that we may here suspect some 
artifice intended to throw one off the scent—a blind. 

Besides, it is well known how readily the eclecticism of 
the Neoplatonists assimilated all doctrines. Would it be any 
wonder that, to outlive the decree of Justinian, the teaching 
of the school of Athens outwardly submitted to its enemies 
in order to save its real existence which was menaced? As 
already stated, the masters of the condemned school were 
received at the court of Khosru, king of Persia. Perhaps it is 
amongst them that we must seek the elusive author of these 
sensational books, This at least is a hypothesis strangely 
favoured by comparing the doctrine of the Pseudo-Dionysius 
with the teaching of the most recent masters, especially 
Damascius, who merely repeated Proclus.' Not to go be- 
yond what is permissible in the field of conjecture, we will 
confine ourselves to regarding the Pseudo-Dionysius as a 
disciple of Proclus. 

Besides, the case of these books is no isolated one; indeed, 
there appeared in the fifth century a complete Neoplatonist 
literature which attempted to rescue from the ruins every- 
thing that it could induce Christianity to accept. There is 
the dialogue of Æneas of Gaza, Theophrastus, or the immortality 
of souls and the resurrection of bodies, and the dialogue of 
Zacharias, Ammonius, or the construction of the world. To this 
literature may very probably be attributed the works with 
which the name of Dionysius the Areopagite is connected. 

The interest, however, in the writings of the Pseudo- 
Dionysius is due to the fact that this mysterious literature 
was the channel along which passed almost the whole of 
Neoplatonism in Christian speculation and mysticism, that 


1 Baumgarten-Crusius (De Dionysio Areopagita, Jena 1836), J. Stiglmayr 
(Das Aufkommen der pseudodionysischen Schiften, Feldkirch, 1895), and Hugo 
Koch have quite clearly shown that the ideas of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the 
imagery with which he clothes them mostly originate in the religions of the 
mysteries and in Proclus: sun, chalice, mirror, house, food, intoxication, sleep, 
etc. For details and parallels see Koch, op. cit., pp. 198 ss. 


272 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Saint Thomas revered the Pseudo-Dionysius almost as much 
as he revered Aristotle, and that from the time of Scotus 
Erigena all the schools, particularly that of Saint-Victor, 
devoted themselves to the study of these writings. 

The wide diffusion of these treatises during the Middle 
Ages leaves us in no doubt that Ruysbroeck had read them. 
This presumption is confirmed, as we shall see, by the striking 
analogy of ideas and terminology. 

From the Pseudo-Dionysius Ruysbroeck adopted the 
idea that mystical knowledge is a science with definite and 
precise rules, one which holy men alone can acquire. This 
knowledge is obtained by realising a state of mental vacuity, 


by means of a union superior to intelligence, when intelligence, with- 
drawing from all beings and again left to itself, unites with the splendours 
that shine above it, and, inundated with brightness on all sides, obtains 
illumination from the unfathomable deeps of wisdom.! 


This knowledge, then, implies a privation, a stripping off, 
a veritable mutilation of the natural man; it is in this sense 
that we must interpret the declaration of our author: où 
povov pabdv, dAXAG Kat ray Ta Oeia3 the things of God are learnt 
not by study alone, but also by suffering. 

Mystic science, ‘with its prolonged discipline, is exacted 
by the very nature of God: inapprehensible, incomprehen- 
sible and inexpressible. The Neoplatonist theodicy of Diony- 
sius is also found in Ruysbroeck, without any important 
modification. God is the being above all, the One without 
a predicate. 

God is called one, because in the excellence of his absolutely indivisible 
singularity he comprehends all things, and, without departing from 
unity, is the creator of multiplicity. ... And this unity, the principle of 


beings, is not part of a whole, but rather, prior to all universality and 
multitude, itself has determined all multitude and universality. 


God being the Absolute, “the essence above all essence, 
the One above being,” * is superior to all our conceptions. 
We can form an idea of him only by approximation. This 

1 De div. nom., chapter vii. 3. ? [bid., chapter ii. 9. 

* Jbid., chapter xiii. 2. 4 [bid,, chapter i. 1. 


NEOPLATONISM 273 


approximation is realised in two ways: the negative or 
apophatic, and the affirmative or cataphatic, a conception 
based on a text from Plato’s Timeus, borrowed by Plotinus, 
but carried to its ultimate developments in the Pseudo- 
Dionysius. As we have seen, it is also the method utilised 
by Ruysbroeck. 

But how can this God, one, absolute and indeterminate, 
be related to the Christian trinity? To escape the difficulty 
our author proceeds in the same way as Proclus, by identi- 
fying the One with Goodness (rdya6v), which cannot exist 
without radiating. Thus we are not dealing with the Plotinian 
hypostases, although Dionysius uses the term: ürorrdres; 
in Plotinus the hypostases depend on one another in 
descending order. The trinitarian notion would seem to have 
been introduced almost forcibly into the conception of 
Unity; it certainly appears adventitious. 

These hypostases [says the Pseudo-Dionysius] dwell one within the 
other, so that there is the strictest unity along with the most real dis- 
tinction. Thus, in a room lit by several torches, the various lights combine 
and are all in all, though without blending or losing their own individual 
existence, united though distinct and distinct in unity (duryas).? 

In this God, the supreme Archetype, the paradigms of all 
things exist in the threefold aspect implied by trinity. 

Creation is thus the result of a radiation, and this ex- 
plains the progressive descent of the manifestations of 
life, for the ray becomes feebler the farther it travels from 
its centre. 

Here too Ruysbroeck strictly follows the unknown mystic: 
he too places trinity at the centre of the One, and thus causes 
to proceed from the One the threefold impress which char- 
acterises creatures, from the most perfect being to the con- 
fines of matter. 

This dynamism of Deity is expressed by the Pseudo- 
Dionysius in a form peculiar to himself, and which we shall 


1 Delacroix, Le mysticisme spéculalif . . ., p. 247. 

* De div. nom., chapter ii. 4. 

° The germ of this is already to be found in Proclus, who likes to speak of a 
chain connecting the various universes: dewy ceipd. Com. in Tim., 65; in Parm. 5. 


274 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE | 


also find in Ruysbroeck: it is his conception of the Azerarchy, 
in close connection with his theory of the return to God. To 
fill up the gap which separates God from creation and enable 
the latter to return to its source, Dionysius interposes two 
orders of hierarchically-arranged powers. The one constitutes 
a stream from above downwards: this is the celestial hier- 
archy, composed of three triads forming together nine choirs 
of angels. The other is a reverse stream from below upwards: 
this is the ecclesiastical hierarchy, corresponding to the 
purely spiritual celestial hierarchy and consisting of three 
degrees, represented by three sacraments, three priestly 
orders, three orders of believers.? 

To ascend to God, man must pass the three degrees of 
purification (xéOapors), illumination (borwucs), and perfection 
(redetwors).” 

Granted the degradation of divine virtue, evil can have 
no real existence, for it is simply the absence of good. This 
is purely a Neoplatonist conception Strictly speaking, in 
Dionysius there is no theory of sin, no redemption by Christ. 
On these questions the author refers to his OQcodoy:Kat 
iroruréres, Whose existence is very problematical. Never- 
theless, evil is punishable when it manifests man’s opposition 
to the stream which carries him towards the good. In spite 
of its Christian colouring, the work of the Pseudo-Dionysius 
regards redemption only as the goal of the man who unites 
himself with God. Here, then, is a gap which Ruvsbroeck has 
filled, as we have seen, with the traditional elements supplied 
to him by Scholasticism. 


1 Purification, illumination, perfection — baptism, eucharist, ordination— 
liturgies, priests, hierarchs—catechumens, initiates, therapeuts. De coel. hier., 
chapters v., vi. 

* De coel. hier., chapter vii. This division is generally regarded as peculiarly 
that of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Its principle is to be found in Plato, who inspired 
in turn Philo and Plotinus. lamblichus speaks of the degrees of virtue: àyveia, 
Yuxhs-kardpruous eis Oéav-Ëvwors (De myst., chapter x. 5). Proclus also: émiorhyn- 
ErAauwyis-Evwors (In Alcib., chapter iii. 103). By way of the Pseudo-Dionysius 
this division has passed into Scholasticism and into Christian mysticism: via 
purgativa—illuminativa—unitiva. 

* The theory of evil in Dionysius (De div. nom., chapter iv. 18-33) is but the 
so-to-speak literal reproduction of the treatise of Proclus, De malorum sub- 
sistentia. Cf. H. Koch on Philologus (1895), pp. 438 ss. 


NEOPLATONISM 275 


The supreme object of the spiritual life is @éwo1s or prorexi) 
évoois. Those who attain to this height (oi Deoeudeis vôes) 


bave entered, by cessation of all intellectual process, into intimate union 
with the ineffable light. 

Then, set free from the worlds of sense and of intellect, the soul enters 
into the mysterious obscurity of a holy ignorance, and, renouncing every 
scientific datum, loses itself in him who can be neither seen nor appre- 
hended; wholly given up to this sovereign object, without belonging either 
to itself or to others; united to the Unknown by the noblest part of 
itself, and because of its renunciation of science; finally, obtaining from 
this absolute ignorance a knowledge to which the understanding could 
never attain.? Then the soul comes to know a special joy: fruition or the 
touch divine3 


It is unnecessary to demonstrate the similarity between 
the doctrine of Ruysbroeck and that of the Pseudo-Diony- 
sius; the latter supplies Christian mysticism with all its ele- 
ments, and, besides, transmits to it an ample supply of 
images which we shall find in all who have come to draw 
upon this bounteous spring. For instance, the image of the 
torches whose individual flames nevertheless constitute 
but one undivided brightness, that of iron and fire whose 
elements interpenetrate, that of air and light, etc. No single 
influence is more clearly marked. Ruysbroeck is the genuine 
disciple of the Pseudo-Dionysius and, through him, the 
inheritor of the Neoplatonism systematised by Proclus, just 
as through Saint Augustine he was the inheritor of Plotinian 
Neoplatonism. 

All the same, in Ruysbroeck there is an unconcealed 
tendency towards pantheism. We should not dare to say 
that he remains, like his master, on the brink of pantheism. 
It may be that he refrained from crossing the limits per- 
mitted; still, it must be acknowledged that, as regards 
expression at least, he gave just grounds for suspicion. 
Gerson was labouring under no delusion when he called 
attention to such a phrase as the following: “Man sees him- 
self as engulfed in unity, by the close consciousness of his 
union, and as though plunged in the living being of God, by 


1 De div. nom., chapter i. 5. 
* De myst. theol., chapter 1. 3; De div. nom., chapter i. 2. 
3 De eccl. hier., chapter i.; De div. nom., chapter vii. 


276 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


death to all things. And there he feels that he lives one 
and the same life with God.” 1 

By affording ground for these accusations, was Ruysbroeck 
simply following the natural trend of his thought? Was he 
developing of himself the premises he had found in his masters, 
the Pseudo-Dionysius or the Victorines ? Or was his pantheism 
rather the result of a new influence brought to bear upon 
him? This is the question we now have to examine. 


V 


At the outset there is evidently at the very centre of 
Ruysbroeck’s doctrine, in his theory of the return to God, 
a virtual pantheism, to release himself from which he need 
but drop its Scholastic elements. It is not in vain that God 
is shown to be in everything, so much so that he is nowhere, 
that he is nothing? Nor is it with impunity that the inter- 
penetration of divinity and humanity is assigned as the 
supreme end for human destiny. Scholasticism, which also 
contained equally dangerous premises, had evaded pan- 
theistic conclusions only by counterbalancing the Neo- 
platonism it had adopted with an imposing element of 
Aristotelianism. It thus brought about an exact equilibrium 
between rationalism and mysticism; but the precise balance 
was so nicely effected that but little was needed to turn the 
scales in favour of Neoplatonism. This was clearly seen in 
the case of Meister Eckhart. | 

We must acknowledge that there existed some external 
influence whose effect Ruysbroeck did not gauge exactly, 
or which, more probably, was exercised upon him without 
his knowledge. This influence we attribute to the doctrine 
of Scotus Erigena, popularised by the Beghards and the 
Free Spirit associations and systematised by Meister Eckhart 
of Hochheim. 


1 The Sparkling Stone, chapter iii. 

* The true formula of pantheism is found in Scotus Erigena, from whom it 
passed into all the mystics directly or indirectly inspired by him: erit enim Deus 
omnia in omnibus, quando nihil erit nist solus Deus (De div. nat., v. 8). 


NEOPLATONISM 279 


$ 1. Ruysbroeck, needless to say, was not directly ac- 
quainted with the doctrine of Scotus Erigena. For three 
centuries the Church had bitterly opposed Erigena’s philo- 
sophy, which it rightly regarded as the origin and fomenter 
of spiritual anarchy and of popular pantheism. In 1225 
Honorius III. fulminates against a book entitled Periphyszts, 
mentioned to him by the bishop of Paris, and which is none 
other than the De Divisione Naturae After this epoch the 
condemned book would seem to have disappeared; at all 
events it is no longer read either in convents or in schools. 
Its doctrine, however, had already passed into popular 
thought, by means of Amaury and David de Dinant; after 
which it continued its course apart from the Church, though 
not without being seriously debased and giving rise to inter- 
pretations which could not have been foreseen by the one 
who had elaborated it. 

And so it is worth while considering briefly the man and 
the work destined to play so important a part in the history 
of ideas. 

Of all the masters whom Charlemagne and Charles the 
Bald had summoned from Italy and England to reconstitute 
Scholastic knowledge, Scotus Erigena was really the only 
one who appeared as a philosopher. He was also a Hellenist, 
capable of placing himself in contact with the soul of anti- 
quity and thus borrowing from the great traditions, of which 
only fragments remained, the very elements wherewith his 
personal genius was imbued. Now what will he choose out 
of all this wealth of the past? Neoplatonism and the Alexan- 
drian philosophy. 

Summoned by Hincmar to defend orthodoxy against 
the Saxon monk Gottschalc, who upheld the theory of pre- 
destination,? Scotus Erigena draws his main arguments from 


1'®Nuper . . . est quidam liber qui perifisis titulatur, inventus, totus scatens 
vermibus heretice pravitatis.’”’ Denifle and Chatelain, Chartular, I. i. pp. 106-7. 
2 “* He who would be saved,” said Gottschalc, ‘‘and labours in ardent faith and 
with good works to obtain eternal life with the aid of God’s grace, loses his time 
and trouble, if God has not predestined him to life.” Letter to Count Héberard, 
in Migne, Patr. lat., t. CXII. col. 1554. 
x 


278 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the Neoplatonist theory of the non-reality of evil. “How can 
God predestine a man to sin and evil seeing that sin and evil 
do not exist? Simple negations of being, how can they be 
the results of the will of God? The sole cause of sin is the 
defective will of man; his sole chastisement is remorse.” 
Manifestly the Church had made a bad choice of its advocate; 
justly alarmed, it hastened to condemn the De Praedestina- 
tione at the Councils of Valence and Langres, in 855 and 859. 
After this, and in spite of opposition, Scotus Erigena kept 
to his original source of inspiration. More than this, he was 
eager to secure for his age the benefits of this lofty idealism, 
and so translated and commented on the writings of the 
Pseudo-Dionysius, thus directly linking up the Middle Ages 
with the noblest products of the thought of antiquity. It is 
impossible to say what would have been the trend of medieval 
thought but for this famous translation; assuredly it would 
have been quite different. The mention of it here is the creation 
of the first link of the philosophic development which, by 
way of speculative mysticism, takes us right to the Substance 
of Spinoza, the Indifference of Schelling, the Idea of Hegel; 
all these being names whereby the human thought has 
attempted to express the inexpressible God. 

Thus brought in contact with Oriental emanationism 
which permeates the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius, 
Scotus Erigena was forced to follow up the logical conse- 
quences of his thought. During the latter years of his stay 
at the court of Charles the Bald, about 870, he brought 
together the various elements of his doctrine into a powerful 
system, the originality of which consisted in introducing 
the best of Oriental thought into the Christian dogma. 

This was no longer, as with Dionysius, a forced marriage, 
an arbitrary juxtaposition, but a genuine fusion. And while 
Scotus Erigena was effecting a harmonious balance between 
two worlds, two thoughts so different in many respects, with 
singular intuition into spiritual life he was also reconciling 
the rights of reason with those of the heart. While, in stating 
the equation: recta philosophia vera religio, conversimque vera 


NEOPLATONISM 279 


religio recta philosophia, Erigena is the father of Scholas- 
ticism, he is equally deserving to be called the father of 
speculative mysticism, because he set up within creation a 
vast circuit with a God, inapprehensible to the reason, both 
as its beginning and as its end.t 

From this imposing construction we will disentangle 
those elements which were adopted by the Amalricians 
and, through them, constituted the doctrinal basis of the 
heresies, pantheistic in tendency, which, as we have seen, 
were prevalent in the Middle Ages. 

Let us recognise, above all, that, while the Church con- 
demned Scotus Erigena, he was the first to be astonished at 
such action. No one was ever more convinced that he was faith- 
fully interpreting traditional doctrine.? But when form has 
to be given to this interpretation, by a singular turn of mind 
our author always chooses, out of two expressions, the one 
which seems the farther removed from doctrinal orthodoxy. 
Hence all his troubles and the ulterior deviations to which 
his system gave rise. 

The conception of God does not differ from that of the 
Pseudo-Dionysius, the God One and absolute, indeterminate, 
so far removed from our standards that he cannot even be 
aware of what he is. We may then say that, judged by human 
conceptions, he is a Nothingness, and, for that reason, the 
man who, in a negative approach, removes all determination 
from his conception of God, will come nearest to him. This 
is the well-founded superiority of negative theology. 

To explain the world, then, the thinker cannot take his 
starting-point from God, who, by definition, is inaccessible. 
He must begin with his own mental ideas. Thus he assumes 
that the created world is a projection of God, according to 
the images that exist in him as the eternal Archetype. And 
so the world is a representation of God, a theophany in the 

1 Et sibi ipsi infinitus et incomprehensibilis. Nescit se quid ipse est; Deus 
itaque nescit se quid est, quia non est quid; incomprehensibilis quippe in aliquo 
et sibi et omni intellectui.’’ De div. nat., ii. 28. 


2 Saint-René Taillandier, Scot Érigène, p. 238; E. Gilson, La philosophie au 
moyen âge, t. I. p. 25. 


280 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


third degree. In the beginning there is God per se, the principle 
of all things, immutable and absolute: natura creans sed non 
creata. Finally the manifestation of the eternal ideas con- 
stitutes the third degree of being; this is the world of sense, 
natura creata et non creans. The world thus issues direct from 
God; it is God, simply separated from the first Principle by 
differentiation of degree. God is immediately in the world, 
and this latter is co-eternal with God: proinde non duo a se 
ipsis distantia debemus intelligere Deum et creaturam, sed 
unum et id ipsum. There is identity of substance between 
Creator and creature. 

This conception implied a genuine depersonalisation of the 
members of the Christian Trinity. Thus, to Scotus Erigena, 
the Word or divine Logos (natura creans sed non creata) is 
less a person in the Christian sense, a hypostasis in the Neo- 
platonist sense, than an intellectual representation. This 
may not be what Scotus Erigena says in so many words, but 
his conception is really grounded on a consideration of the 
Word as a pure metaphysical entity, habitus substantiae Der? 

It is generally considered that the culminating point of 
the doctrine of Scotus Erigena is his anthropology. It would 
be more true to regard his conception of the Word as the 
axis of his whole philosophy. For while there is to be found 
in the Word the cause of all the theophanies, including man, 
which constitute the ensemble of the natura creata et non 
creans, it is also the Word that determines the return move- 
ment of creation towards God, a movement culminating in 
a fourth state of being, natura non creata et non creans, 
i.e. in a veritable deification of man and of the world. 

To justify this return, Scotus Erigena utilises the doctrine 
of the Fall. Man in his origin was the purest theophany of 
deity, bearing in the trinity of his fundamental faculties, 
intellectus, ratio, sensus, the impress of the divine Trinity. 
He lost his divine dignity, however, in the Fall, while remain- 
ing capable of continually receiving within himself the 


1 De div. nat., chapter iii. 17. 
? Delacroix, Le mysticisme spéculatif . . ., p. 24. Cf. Buchwald, Der Logos- 
begriff des Joh. Scotus Evigena (Leipzig, 1884). 


Fe er, ES ee ee - = 


Éd, 


die le As 


NEOPLATONISM 281 


influx of the divine energy. It is his destiny to return to God, 
but he is incapable of doing this himself; hence the necessity 
of a redemption, wrought through the Word. This deification 
is progressive; its principal stages can take place only after 
the dissolution of the body in death. Still, man is able in this 
world — wirtute contemplationis —to unite with God by a 
series of mystical processes. God being within himself, he 
has to penetrate to this extreme essence of his personality 
wherein Deity lies hidden. Visible nature, too, will share in 
this final return which to it is nothing else than the supreme 
expression of the divine dynamism working within it. 

Such, briefly outlined, is the undoubtedly grandiose con- 
ception of Scotus Erigena. In its broad aspects we can the 
better see what a dangerous declivity it offered to minds of 
every kind. The conception of this God in a state of perpetual 
becoming was bound to strike the imagination of philosophers, 
just as the deification of man, propounded to religious souls 
as an immediately realisable end, could not help raising their 
spiritual aspirations. On the other hand, however, in an 
economy thus conceived wherein man is represented as moved 
by an irreducible force towards God, what became of the 
Church and the sacraments, of the very conception of Christian 
redemption? And what consequences were the people to 
draw from a doctrine which, apparently at least, deified man 
and denied that there was any substantial reality in evil? 

We have seen that these two orders of conclusions, so 
widely contrasted, became actualised in the thirteenth 
century. Theorists like David de Dinant and Amaury de 
Béne lay hold upon the ideas expressed by Scotus Erigena, 
as did the sectarians of Swabia or the libertines whose im- 
moralities threw discredit on the associations of Beghards 
or the Brothers of the Free Spirit. 

As we note in several parts of Ruysbroeck’s work a strange 
similarity of thought and expression to the doctrine of 
Scotus Erigena, we may ask ourselves whether, in opposing 
Bloemardinne and the heretical Beghards, he may not have 
unwittingly come under the influence of their ideas. 


282 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


There is nothing improbable in the hypothesis, and we 
find that it was first made by Gerson. Ruysbroeck, says the 
chancellor of Paris, was wrong in asserting 


that the contemplative soul beholds God in a brightness which constitutes 
the divine essence, that the soul itself is this divine brightness, that it 
ceases to be in the existence it has had in its own kind; that it is changed, 
transformed, absorbed into divine being, and flows into the ideal being 
it had from all eternity within the divine essence; that it is so utterly lost 
in the ocean of divine splendours that no creature can find it again, some- 
what like a drop of wine thrown into a large amount of water; that the 
ideal being it has in God is the cause of its existence in time... 7m speaking 
thus the author was not a conscious (pertinax) heretic, but probably, unknown 
to himself, came under the influence of the doctrine of the Beghards to whom 
he himself was opposed} 

In this connection we do not hesitate to recognise the 
perspicacity of the chancellor of Paris. As regards the 
substance-matter we must believe Ruysbroeck himself, for 
he lets slip no opportunity of defending himself against the 
charge of pantheism. Still, the expression he has given to his 
doctrine inevitably lends itself to grave misunderstandings. 
If we reflect that Ruysbroeck attempts to put in writing the 
most elusive moments of the contemplative life, the inex- 
pressible intuitions of the mind raised far above all tangible 
reality, then we understand that he may not have been able 
to find adequate translation for his interior experiences. 
You cannot coin a language for that which transcends words. 
Rather had he, in the Dionysian translation among others, 
a ready-made vocabulary, the one utilised by the Brothers 
of the Free Spirit to express their illuminations. What wonder 
that orthodox doctor and heretics met at that boundary of 
language where words are nothing more than approxima- 
tions? The hypothesis is all the more probable seeing that 
Ruysbroeck, aiming at rectifying the disastrous opinions of 
the sectarians on the contemplative life of union with God, 
borrows, in order to combat them, the very weapons of his 
adversaries; he wishes to demonstrate that, behind identical 
terms, another reality must appear. 


§ 2. Still, may there not have been a more definite in- 
1 Gersomii Opera, edit. Dupin (Antwerp, 1706), t. I. p. 62. 


NEOPLATONISM 283 


fluence which would have brought Ruysbroeck in contact 
with the philosophy that had its origin in Scotus Erigena? 

In studying the doctrine of our mystic, we cannot help 
recognising in it striking analogies with that of Meister 
Eckhart. Tradition tells of a visit Ruysbroeck made to 
Cologne, where he became profoundly influenced by the 
teaching of Albertus Magnus and Meister Eckhart. There is 
nothing improbable in such a journey, though it is not 
necessary for the purpose of recognising the influence of the 
master of Hochheim upon our author. The sermons of Meister 
Eckhart were known in the Netherlands from the beginning 
of the fourteenth century; there is even a contemporary 
manuscript containing a translation of them into the Brabant 
dialect. Besides, Eckhart’s condemnation took place in 1329. 
At that time, in all probability, Ruysbroegk’s ideas were 
already defined and may have comprised certes originating 
in the famous mystic. Van Mierlo rightly remarks that the 
same Latin expressions are habitually translated in identical 
fashion by Eckhart and by Ruysbroeck, although such trans- 
lation was not absolutely obligatory.! Ruysbroeck had no need 
subsequently to retract these borrowings, for he had firmly 
incorporated them into his own system; blending with his own 
personal conceptions, they had lost their subversive character. 

Indeed, Ruysbroeck’s main concern is to include his 
mystical theories within the scheme of orthodox tradition. 
Such concern is almost non-existent in Meister Eckhart, 
and though claiming to begin with Church doctrine, he 
manifests a certain degree of scorn for the vulgar conceptions 
upheld by traditional theologians, die wol gelert seynd, und 
grosz pfaffen wollen sein, das sy sich also schier lassen geniigen. 
Thus his aim is to complete the traditional teaching, and the 
origin of the elements he utilises concerns him but little. There 
is nothing of this kind in Ruysbroeck. He candidly borrows 
from Meister Eckhart what agrees with his own conceptions, 
without suspecting that he is thus investing with the authority 
of the Church what the Church had frequently condemned. 


1 Dietsche Warande, p. 438. For instance: vonke, ongeest, grond, etc. 


284 RUYSBROECK, THE ADMIRABLE 


The general trend of Meister Eckhart’s system is found 
in his Sermons.' It is in this imposing collection that we shall 
now seek the ideas found in Ruysbroeck’s works. 

Needless to say such an investigation can be no more 
than approximate. Nowhere, indeed, does Ruysbroeck 
mention Meister Eckhart. To limit, therefore, all risk of 
error, we will confine ourselves to the only elements for which 
there exists a dual analogy: that of subject-matter and that 
of terminology. The analogy of subject-matter alone would 
be inadequate, for as Eckhart’s ideas were widely promul- 
gated among the Beghards and the Brothers of the Free 
Spirit, some of them may have come to Ruysbroeck along 
this channel. The analogy of expression, too, considered 
alone, would be quite as indecisive, for the terms used by 
Meister Eckhart are largely to be found in the other German 
mystics—Kraft von Boyberg, Tauler, Suso—and sometimes 
in a different sense. 

The entire system of Eckhart is but the development of 
his notion of being, which is the only reality. God is he who is, 
and outside of him there is nothing, i.e. reversing the terms 
of the proposition, nothing is outside of God. This state of 
being superior to all determination is one that Eckhart ex- 
presses by calling God: ein überswesende wesen : Got ist ein 
wesen ? ez 1st nicht war: er ist ein überswesende wesen und 
ein überswesende nichtheait? We can neither express him thus 
by a name nor imagine him under any form. He permeates 
all things, but is above all things: Er hat aller creaturen wesen 
in im, er ist ein wesen das alle wesen in im hat. . 
Dasz er 1st in allen creaturen, daz 1st er doch dar uber 

? We shall use the classic edition of Franz Pfeiffer (vol. II. of Deutsche Mys- 
tiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1857), which, in spite of the works 
of P. Denifle on Eckhart’s Latin sermons, is still the basis of all the critical 
studies dealing with the thought of the great mystic. For parallels in Ruysbroeck, 
we shall refer to the edition of J.-B. David. 

* Pfeiffer, p. 319. Ruysbroeck also says: Het overwesen Gods, de onghebeelde 
bloetheit (The Twelve Beguines, p. 36; The Mirror, p. 206). 

* Pfeiffer, p. 268. Ruysbroeck: Die onbegripelike hoghe nature Gods, die 
onthoeghet allen creaturen . . . want God is boven allen creaturen, ende buten ende 


binnen allen creaturen, ende alle ghescapen begrijp is te inghe hem te begripene 
(The Spiritual Marriage, p. 37). | 


SS a ee 


ee SS NS ee ) 


ee I ee ee cp Îe de 





NEOPLATONISM 285 


But this amorphous God is potentially fruitful. He could 
not remain in the state of “unnatured” nature (ungenaturte 
natuur), of a silent wilderness wrapt in deep slumber. 
Now if begetting is the work of a thought, deity must begin 
by thinking itself. Thus Eckhart sets forth that the first 
manifestation of Deity is Intelligence: Der herr ist ein lebende, 
wesende, ystige vernünftigkeit, die sich selber verstet . . . sein 
wesen ist sein bekennen . . . Seine substancie und sein natur 
und sein wesen ist sein beckennen? 

The act whereby God knows himself is therefore an act 
of begetting. In thinking itself Deity begets the Word: Der 
fürwurf des verstentnisses 1st daz ewige Wort. . . . Der vatter 
sicht aff sich selber mit einer einfaltigen bekaninusz, und sicht 
in die einfaltige lauterkeit seins wesens, da sicht er gebildet alle 
creaturen, da spricht er sich selber ; das wort ist ein klar bekant- 
nusz, und das ist der sun3 

This begetting of the Son is an eternal begetting, i.e. 
God eternally differentiates himself from himself: Das ewige 
verstentnisse des vater erbildet er sein bild sin selbes, sinen 
sun... . Sein wiircken ist seinen sun geberen, den gebirt er 
allzeyt.* 

In its turn, the association of Father and Son begets the 
Holy Spirit, for they cannot refrain from begetting, so great 
is the delight and enjoyment they experience in creating. 
The Holy Spirit is thus nothing else than the joy of Deity 
made manifest. Hr gebirt einen sun und gebirt in alzemale 
niiwe und frische, und hat so grozen lust an dem wercke, daz er 
anders nicht entut danne daz er daz wercke wircket und den 


1 Pfeiffer, pp. 242, 266. Ruysbroeck uses the same figures to express this first 
stage of deity: abys der onghenaemtheit, die donkere stille, die grondelose zee, die 
wilde woestine (The Twelve Beguines, p. 79; The Spiritual Marriage, p. 107). 

* Pfeiffer, pp. 336-7. Ruysbroeck: Nadien dat die almachtige Vader, in den 
gronde sine vruchtbaerheit hem selven volcomelike begrepen hevet (The Spiritual 
Marriage, p. 187). 

5 Pfeiffer, p. 337. Ruysbroeck: Al dat levet in den Vader, onvertoent in enicheit, 
dat levet inden Sone ute ghevloten inder openbaerheit. . . . Soe ist die Sone, dat 
ewighe Woert des Vaders, ute ghegaen, een ander persoen inder Godheit (The Spiritual 
Marriage, pp. 187-8). 

4 Pfeiffer, p. 378. Ruysbroeck: Want daer is altoes nuwe ghebaren in nuwe 
bekennen, nuwe behaghen ende nuwe untgheesten (The Sparkling Stone, p. 258). 


286 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


heiligen geist in ime und alle dinc. The essence of the Spirit 
is Goodness or Love; in it God loves all creatures: Güete ist 
der hetlige geist; giiete daz ist da got uz smilzet und gemernet 
sich allen creaturen 

Here we find Scotus Erigena’s idea of Deity in becoming, 
with its final stages: absolute Being, natura quae creat et non 
creatur ; the Word, natura quae creatur et creat ; the universe, 
natura quae creatur et non creat. At this point Eckhart and 
Ruysbroeck part company with Scotus Erigena, who re- 
garded the fourth and last stage of deity as the return of the 
body-liberated spirit to the divine reasons: natura quae nec 
creatur nec creat. Eckhart and Ruysbroeck reflect rather 
on the Holy Spirit: ende dese gheest en baert noch en wert 
gheboren, maer hi moet ewelike uutvloyen? 

The divine Being is thus regarded in dual aspect: in 
its essence and before all differentiation of persons, Deity 
is motionless; its characteristic is rest: Gotlich nature ist 
ruowe. Through activity of persons Deity becomes active; 
it becomes self-determined as God.f 

This God in becoming, from whom the whole created 
world originates, inspires Meister Eckhart with a kind of 
metaphysical intoxication which was communicated to 
Ruysbroeck. A perpetual torrent of life gushes forth from 
Deity and spreads to every degree of being: in disem ewigen 
uzflusse, da alliu dinc uzgeflossen sint ane sich selber da waren 

1 Pfeiffer, p. 124. Ruysbroeck calls the Holy Spirit, with reference to the two 
other persons of the Trinity, their mutual love: Hare beyder minne, die een met 
hem beyden is inder selver naturen. Ende st beveet ende doregheet, werckelijc ende 
gebrukelic, den Vader ende den Sone, ende al dat in hem beyden levet, met alsoe 
groter vijcheit ende vrouden, dat hieraf alle creaturen ewelike swighen moeten ; want 
dat onbegripelike wonder dat in deser minnen leghet, dat onthoeghet ewelike allen 
creaturen verstane (The Spiritual Marriage, p. 191). 


* Ruysbroeck, The Spiritual Marriage, p. 109; Eckhart, édit. Pfeiffer, pp. 92, 
206, 479. 

3 Pfeiffer, pp. 152, 214; Ruysbroeck, The Twelve Beguines, p. 84. 

4 Pfeiffer, p. 181. Eckhart clearly specifies the distinction between motionless 
deity and God: Got der wiircket, die gotheyt nit, sy hat auch nit zu wiirkend, in 
ir ist auch hein werck. Gott und gotheyt hat unterscheyd an würchen und an nit wiircken. 
This distinction is far less clear in Ruysbroeck, who contents himself with showing 
the divine essence to be motionless: Van naturen ende van wesene ewelic stille, 
ende onbeweghelic (The Twelve Beguines, pp. 82-3; The Spiritual Marriage, 
pp. 187-90). | 


NEOPLATONISM 287 


st in im Relinquishing the expression of the eternal cycle 
of things coming from and returning to God, our two mystics 
call creative activity a perpetual now: Got schôpfet die welt 
und alliu dinc in einem gegenwürtigen Nu? 

Along with this eternal creation, however, which main- 
tains perpetual youth in the universe, there has been creation 
in time. This creation is a voluntary act of God, on which 
he has resolved in love. Therefore Eckhart regards this 
creation as being in time, with relation to the Holy Spirit, 
who is goodness (guete): er 1st ein werkmetster und ein wiirker 
des werdens in der ewikeit und in der zeit$ Consequently, as 
God in his beginning is Nothing, one may say that things 
were created from nothing: die Dinge sint geschaffen aus 
nichts.* Evidently Eckhart here attempts to retain the dogma 
of creation ex nihilo, without however succeeding in fully 
concealing his true thought, which is to regard creation as a 
manifestation not of the divine ideas, but of divine Being 
itself. On this point Ruysbroeck amended his thought in 
the direction of the Christian dogma and thus avoided the 
pantheism into which Eckhart inevitably falls in identifying 
the world with God. And so Ruysbroeck attributes far greater 
importance to the theory of ideas and comes nearer to the 
Pseudo-Dionysius than to Scotus Erigena, whom Meister 
Eckhart here follows. 

The Flemish mystic takes the same precautions when 
dealing with the return of creation into God. Indeed, he con- 
siders only the union of the soul which, at the crown of the 
mystical life, dissolves in God. Along the lines of his escha- 
tology, he accepts the dissolution of material things and the 
destruction of unrepentant sinners. 


1 Pfeiffer, p. 582. Ruysbroeck also speaks of the ewich uutvlieten, overmits die 
gheboert des Soens in ere anderheit met onderscede na ewigher redenen (The Spiritual 
Marriage, p. 188). à 

2 Pfeiffer, p. 266. Ruysbroeck: God bescouwet hem selven ende allen dinc in 
enen ewighen Nu (The Spiritual Marriage, p. 187). 

3 Pfeiffer, p. 497. Ruysbroeck: Omne dat hi sine . . . goede toenen woude, so 
hevet hi ghescapen (The Kingdom of God’s Lovers, p. 127). 

4 Quoted by Preger, Niedners Zeitschrift für hist. Theol., 1864, p. 175; Delacroix, 
Mystic. spéculatif, p.185. Ruysbroeck: Mit sinen vrien wille, overmits sine ewighe 
wijsheit, soe heeft hi alle dine ghescapen van nieute (The Twelve Beguines, p. 78). 


288 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Still, in spite of these amendments, he clearly shows that 
he is influenced by Meister Eckhart. 

The common starting-ground for both speculatives lies 
in the conception of the soul. Eckhart regards the soul as 
another form of God; Ruysbroeck sees in it simply a fragment 
of Deity. Still, this difference does not prevent him from 
adopting the series of processes which Meister Eckhart attri- 
butes to the soul progressing towards the first form of Deity: 
indeterminate Unity. Like all things, the soul is carried 
along by the incessant stream which emanates from Deity, 
but the fact that it is imprisoned in a body implies a dis- 
cipline which will enable it to disengage itself and so to enter 
into contact with God. This discipline is of a dual nature. 
First it is a relinquishing (geläzenheit): man must renounce 
himself, his inclinations and joys, things created. Then it is 
a simplification, an abstraction (abschiedenheit): the soul 
creates unity within itself, it becomes motionless, wholly 
intent upon one and the same object, God; and in this repose 
it finally perceives simple and motionless Being wherein it 
melts away: man becomes God. It is unnecessary to supply 
texts in proof of this; almost the entire work of Ruysbroeck 
would have to be quoted to demonstrate his agreement with 
Meister Eckhart. Besides, the latter himself relies upon 
prior conceptions, by which SA LR may also have been 
directly influenced. 

As regards the psychology which maintains the entire 
theory of mystic union, both Eckhart and Ruysbroeck 
adopted it, just as it was, from Scholasticism. But as Ruys- 
broeck translates the Latin terms in the same way as does 
Meister Eckhart, whereas he might have chosen from among 
several synonyms, here also we must recognise his dependence 
upon the German mystic.1 Even the conception of evil re- 


1 The powers of the soul (Kvaften, Krachten) are of two kinds: the natural 
powers (nattirliche, natüerlihe, nederste krachten) relate to the world; these are 
the irascible power (ztirnerin, tornighe kracht), the concupiscible power (begerunge, 
begeerlike kracht), reason (redelicheit, redelicheit), freedom of will, which Eckhart 
does not mention (vriheit des willens). The higher powers (oberste kraft, overste 
krachten) concern God and eternity ; these are memory (memoria, memorie), intellect 


AT ee eS 1 


NEOPLATONISM 289 


garded as a lower degree of being is found expressed in almost 
identical terms by Eckhart and by Ruysbroeck, although 
the latter holds a definite theory as to sin, in accord with 
the Church dogma: alles das gebrechlich 1st, das ist abfabl 
von wesen And does not Ruysbroeck, when he magnificently 
extols the priority of charitable duty over religious enjoy- 
ment, supply a wider interpretation to the words of Meister 
Eckhart: to give food to one who is hungry is better than to 
abandon oneself to barren contemplation ? ? 


So we see that there can be no doubt as to the influence 
of Meister Eckhart upon Ruysbroeck; he forms a new link 
between our mystic and Neoplatonism. 

Is this equivalent to asserting that there is no originality 
in the system we have been studying, that the mind of 
Ruysbroeck slavishly subjected itself to the letter of inspira- 
tional doctrine? The few brief hints throughout this work 
testify to the creative efforts which mark out our author. 
Besides, how are we to explain the independent position 
taken by Ruysbroeck and his school in the fourteenth century 
amid the most diversified systems, or the influence subse- 
quently exercised by speculative mysticism? Life alone 
propagates life. Consequently, what we now have to do is to 
gather together the results obtained, arrive at a compre- 
hensive judgment, and so justify the task we have under- 
taken: that of restoring a thinker, so long disregarded, to 
his rightful place in the history of philosophy. 

(verstentnisse, verstennisse), will (wille). Cf. Pfeiffer, pp. 170, 171, 319, 366, 383; 
Ruysbroeck, The Spiritual Marriage, pp. 56, etc.; The Kingdom of God's 
Lovers, pp. 1309-42; The Mirror, pp. 167-8. 

1 Pfeiffer, p. 376. Ruysbroeck: Ende hier om alsulc ghebrec en maect ons niet 
onghehoirsam (The Sparkling Stone, p. 216). 

? Wie wol das inner leben das best an im selber sey, doch ist etwan das unzer 
besser, so das not ist, an leiplicher hilff, als dem hungerigen besser ist essen geben, 
denn die weyl sich über an innerlicher schauwung. Darumb an rechter not ist besser 
über die werck des usseren menschen zu der erbermde mir oder dem nechsten, denn 


sich setzen in ein inner mussigheit des innern menschen an bekennen und begerung 
(Pfeiffer, p. 295). 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE OF RUYSBROECK 


Like the soul, the mind has its own secret. The originality 
of a thinker does not consist only in the value of the materials 
that enter into his thought, but also in the particular laws 
whereby he organises these materials to make them his own. 
To content oneself with dissociating and isolating the 
constituent elements of a system is to remain outside the 
thought of a man. 

Now the very development of thought is combination, 
following on analysis. The quality and intensity of this 
personal effort alone enables one to form an all-round judg- 
ment upon a thinker and his doctrine. 


I 


At the outset we will remark that this state of com- 
bination obeys the law of development, which is the law of 
life itself. The doctrine of such a man as Ruysbroeck is 
singularly illumined when we are able to perceive beneath 
the ever-shifting pattern of his thought the solid framework 
of his life. Ruysbroeck is not a being inspired, in the usual 
sense of the term which completely does away with the 
element of logic. Neither is he a sort of solitary genius, elabo- 
rating apart from his age a system devoid of any relation 
to this earth of ours. No sooner had life itself placed the pen 
in his hand than the evolution of his thought followed closely 
the progress of events. Hence those successive modifications, 
those backward movements, those enthusiastic outbursts, 
followed by renewed checks and restraints. 


Let us take, for instance, the central doctrine of Ruys- 
290 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 291 


broeck’s system: mystic union. This is shown, in its main 
outlines, in the first book of our prior: The Kingdom of 
God’s Lovers. Opposed to the libertine theories of the Brothers 
of the Free Spirit, it presents itself as a discipline, with de- 
finite rules. Shortly afterwards, however, as though carried 
away by his own enthusiasm, Ruysbroeck oversteps the very 
rules he himself prescribed, and in The Adornment of the 
Spiritual Marriage the workings of his mind no longer seem 
to be under any constraint whatsoever: Deity offers itself 
to man as an apprehensible reality. Indeed, Ruysbroeck has 
here departed from concrete facts; he has risen to the absolute, 
into a domain where his early theories on the sacraments 
and Church authority appear as stages that have been super- 
seded. In this he is manifestly expressing a personal experi- 
ence, possible for him because he possessed within himself 
the necessary counterpoise. But he quickly perceives the 
danger of such a generalisation for those devoid of the 
counterpoise of a previous doctrine. And so he makes rectifi- 
cations and explanations; in a series of treatises he returns 
to the indispensable union of the practical and the con- 
templative life. There are evident traces of a prolonged focus- 
sing of his position. Indeed, he comes to a firm conclusion 
only after the inflammatory polemics roused by his early 
writings have calmed down: Lhe Book of Supreme Truth and 
The Twelve Beguines, instinct with the calm serenity of the 
evening of his days, bring together, as in a last will and 
testament, the experiences of a whole lifetime. 

This is the first element to be considered in judging the 
work of our mystic. Accordingly we have deemed it necessary 
to afford history every opportunity of speaking. In such an 
age of social and religious effervescence as the fourteenth 
century, the doctrine of Ruysbroeck aims at satisfying the 
needs of human souls as they manifest themselves. His 
thought finds explanation in the strictly circumscribed times 
during which he lived. And so it may fittingly be judged, 
not from the standpoint of the sixteenth century—as do 
Protestant writers who mainly regard Ruysbroeck as a 


292 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


precursor of the Reformation—nor from that of the thir- 
teenth century—as do those Catholic apologists who consider 
the times of Saint Thomas as the golden age of Christianity, 
—but rather from the standpoint of the religious situation 
of the period. 

The other elements that combine to make up the very 
specialised form of thought called speculative mysticism are 
of an intellectual order. 

These are the two great streams of Scholasticism and Neo- 
platonism. How have these combined and interpenetrated ? 
In the answer to this question lies the great interest of the 
study of philosophical origins. 

Although Scholasticism undoubtedly contains a mystic 
—even a pantheistic—element, it yet mainly represents 
a dialectical construction. To establish this construction 
Scholasticism appeals to very diverse elements: it may be 
asserted that there is no great system in antiquity that has 
not found refuge in this imposing edifice: Aristotle and Plo- 
tinus, Plato and Saint Augustine, Arabic and Jewish philo- 
sophers, have all contributed to it. The genius of Saint 
Thomas welded firmly together these heterogeneous materials. 
But the main character of Scholasticism lies in a presuppo- 
sition: religion—by which term the Christian religion is 
meant—is a direct revelation handed down to the Church. 
By utilising the data of Scholasticism, Ruysbroeck found a 
shelter for his own thought, a solid framework that had all 


the guarantee of ecclesiastical authority. He found that he © 


was protected against himself. 

Indeed, Ruysbroeck is nothing less than an intellectualist. 
Even when he pays the widest tribute to Scholasticism he 
does not succeed in abjuring its spiritual nature. He is keenly 
aware that God is not within the reach of metaphysics. Then, 
for the purpose of apprehending this great Unknown, Neo- 
platonism presents itself. And now we witness the enthralling 
interplay of a mind that attempts to reconcile within itself 
tradition, represented by Scholasticism, and spiritual initia- 
tive, represented by the mysticism born of Neoplatonism. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 293 


This reconciliation Ruysbroeck finds in a series of ex- 
tremely delicate and precise adaptations, clearly testifying 
to his own originality. He does not wholly bow to either 
of the two systems. 

It may be permissible to connect Ruysbroeck with the 
great stream of Neoplatonist thought. We have pointed out 
the striking resemblances which unite them to each other. 
The main lines of the structure appear somewhat similar: 
there is the unnamed God manifesting himself in creation 
to effect self-determination; the powerful dynamism cir- 
culating even in the most distant parts of the universe; the 
intense yearning for the divine working in the whole of 
creation; and finally, the return of all things to their original 
source, the beatitude obtained by repose in motionless Deity. 

Closer examination, however, shows that the differences 
are not less great than the resemblances. In what does the 
Neoplatonist speculation culminate? In a conception of 
God that is absolutely different from the Christian con- 
ception. The God of Christian theology draws near to man 
just as much as man draws near to God. The two dimensions, 
human wretchedness and divine compassion, finally meet in 
Jesus Christ, a mediator who partakes alike of divinity and 
of humanity. The God of Neoplatonism, on the other hand, 
seems to recoil every time that man tries to reach him. This 
fleeing God thus loses every characteristic, every attribute. 
Consequently redemption has no longer any meaning. If 
salvation is nothing more than the reintegration of the 
creature into the great divine All, then the redeemer abandons 
the rôle he has voluntarily assumed. The consequence again 
is that life is clearly sacrificed to metaphysics. The social 
worth of such a religion is practically nil. This is distinctly 
seen when the Brothers of the Free Spirit and the Beghards 
undertook to popularise these principles, which were assuredly 
the offspring of vigorous thinking but were incapable of 
stimulating the courage to live. 

This is what Ruysbroeck clearly saw. Charmed un- 
doubtedly by the lofty idealism of Neoplatonism, he borrows 

Va 


294 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


from it his general conception of things. He disentangles 
from the system everything that, in his opinion, can be 
reconciled with dogmatic orthodoxy, fitting into the ready- 
prepared framework offered by Neoplatonism the data of 
Christian theology. He upholds the Plotinian procession, the 
return of the soul to its source, though he associates them 
with the dogma of the Trinity and with the Redemption. 
He retains divine determinism which secures the soul in its 
progressive deification, but he introduces into the work of 
sanctification the prescriptions of the Church and the sacra- 
ments. And so he does not say—as does Meister Eckhart, 
who was less bound by tradition—that man is necessary 
to God, but rather that God is necessary to man. The point 
of view is absolutely different, and, as a result, the meaning 
of life is not the same. Neoplatonism shows beatitude in a 
genuine depersonalisation; Ruysbroeck assigns a duty to 
man and subordinates knowledge to action, in accordance 
with the words of the Johannine Christ: If any man will do 
God’s will, he shall know of the doctrine. 

In this state of combination, does orthodoxy remain 
intact? As a matter of fact, the orthodox tradition is found 
complete in our author. It is in his cosmology, in his pessi- 
mistic views of human nature, in the rôle of the sacraments 
and the Church, even in the very glance he casts beyond death. 
But all this is presented as a veil. We need but raise it to 
discover the inner mind, the personal religion of Ruys- 
broeck. We admire the ease with which he has succeeded in 
harmonising together notions apparently irreducible: the en- 
closed universe of Ptolemy and the splendidly graded world— 
ever in process of construction—of the Neoplatonists; the 
Scholastic conception of life regarded as an ensemble of 
rational phenomena and the mystical conception of cosmic 
and human destinies; a definite faith and the triumphant 
ascension of the soul towards its principle, far beyond terres- 
trial distinctions; and lastly death, with its incorruptible 
tribunal, of whose sentence there can be no revision what- 
soever, and the incessant outflow of divine energy, extending 





ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 295 


to every stage of being and invincibly impelling the world 
in the direction of universal redemption. 

Ruysbroeck’s entire originality lies in this masterly re- 
conciliation. The conceptions he harbours in his mind do 
not act like corrosive acid which eats away the vessel into 
which it is poured. Nor do they remain side by side, without 
interpenetration. Ruysbroeck is not satisfied’ with borrow- 
ing materials: he assimilates them and makes them mentally 
his own to such a degree that, blending with his inmost 
thoughts, they lose even the tokens of their alien origin. 

Will the objection be raised that this combining process 
is inadequate if it is our object to prove Ruysbroeck’s 
originality? But in that event we should have also to claim 
that the architect gives no proof of personality when arranging 
the stones at his disposal in accordance with his mentally 
conceived plan. Similarly a long philosophical tradition 
supplies materials; any attempt to build up a new system 
can only be inspired by some aspect of Aristotelianism, 
Platonism or Neoplatonism.! The genius of the thinker, 
however, has free scope to arrange, in accordance with an 
end which he has glimpsed, these gathered elements, to form, 
mould and combine them in such a way that the final out- 
come is in very truth a new creation. 

Man being unable, as has been said, “to elude his own 
facial angle,” submitting to the past without which he would 
not be, originality consists less in tmnovating than in giving 
a new meaning or aspect to existing material. This is proved 
by the fact that, in so many different systems, that which 
constituted a novelty at the time it appeared has not 
always been the most durable part of these systems. In this 
connection it is worth while remembering Pascal’s words: 


Let it not be affirmed that I have said nothing new: the arrangement 
of matter is new; when one plays tennis, both players use the same ball, 
but one places it better than the other, I should like just as much to be 
told that I have used old words. As if the same thoughts did not form 
another frame or body of speech with a different arrangement, just as 
the same words form other thoughts when differently arranged. , 


1H. Bergson, La Philosophie (Coll. la Science française) (Paris, 1915), p. 8. 
2 Pensées, édit. Havet, art. vii. 9; t. I. p. 99. 


296 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


Now in the case of Ruysbroeck this different arrangement 
reveals a degree of perspicacity, a sense of the actual, to 
which receding time gives singular value. From out of the 
vast wealth of Scholasticism he divined what were those 
doctrines that would rapidly become a dead weight, that 
would speedily prove incapable of supplying nourishment 
for human souls. Into the gaps which he thus found, after 
removing from Scholasticism its fleeting theories, he planted 
sturdy living elements taken from other philosophical 
streams, and so reconstituted a spiritual tradition capable 
of holding its own against the judgment of the future. 

We will give but one instance of this, since in the im- 
mediately preceding chapters we have closely studied these 
methods of combination. 

We have seen that Ruysbroeck, with singular boldness, 
takes up his position in the very centre of the mind, in order 
to establish its independent reality. In this he openly broke 
away from Scholasticism. What, indeed, did Saint Thomas 
say? He looked upon man as a compound, the result of 
so close an alliance between soul and body that these two 
elements could have no substantial separate existence. The 
soul could be genuinely soul only through its association 
with the body; and as it is the seat of intellectuality, there 
could take place no intellectual process apart from corporeal 
participation. Now, foreshadowing in this respect the modern 
theories of the independence of thought, Ruysbroeck, when 
he appeals on this point to Neoplatonism, is not afraid of 
establishing the personality as entirely resident in the soul, 
and of attributing to this latter an existence of its own, wholly 
detached from all material support. And as a consequence - 
he sets up a direct mode of knowledge, an intuition (from the 
Latin intuert) which we shall find in the Cartesian doctrine 
of radical distinction, a doctrine which has become one of 
the main pillars of modern philosophy. 

Another proof of Ruysbroeck’s originality may be seen 
in his metaphors. There is room for an entirely new and very 
instructive work on the deeper meaning of mystic terminology. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 297 


There is more here than a study in art or in literature: 
the analysis of a process whose supremacy over all other 
means of philosophic expression has been acknowledged by 
such modern schools as attribute the utmost importance to 
the spiritual life.t 

If our intelligence, in its long past, has accumulated, as 
regards one and the same original perception, different 
concepts that frequently contradict one another and have 
been distorted along the ages by a sort of utilitarian twist, 
then manifestly the terms that aim at expressing this per- 
ception answer but very imperfectly to the reality from 
which they originate. The word, such as it comes to our lips 
nowadays, is thus, if one may so express it, sheer indolence; 
it exempts us from going over again, in the inverse direction, 
the whole series of stages which an idea has traversed, from 
the day when it sprang spontaneously fresh from life itself 
down to the present moment, when we limit it to an accus- 
tomed vocable. This is equivalent to saying that terms are 
inadequate to immediate reality, and consequently the image 
or metaphor which, in various aspects, evokes the reality 
and gives a hint or suggestion of it in its vernal originality, 
is in very truth “Vinstrument de choix pour la pensée 
philosophique.” Terms cannot reach down to the essence 
of things; the image, by forcing the mind to come out of its 
mechanical routine, has at all events a chance of approaching 
this essence. 

This method, which the moderns—such as Bergson, that 
master of metaphor—have so admirably developed, has 
been that of the mystics. Incapable of pouring into the 
narrow mould of words the sensations experienced in the 
course of their investigations into the realm of the spirit, 
they have only succeeded in expressing the reflection of their 
contemplations in images as varied as possible. Metaphor 
is thus a sort of golden key to their system, and we should 
run the risk of extracting nothing from mystic thought, did 


LE. Le Roy, Une philosophie nouvelle (Paris, 1913), pp. 47 ss.; H. Bergson, 
Introduction ala Métaphysique, in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale (January 
1903). 


298 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


we neglect this work of interpretation. It is the skilled 
embroidery made up of the very threads that constitute 
the fabric itself. 

And so it comes about that the whole of Ruysbroeck’s 
work is one great allegory. Here his originality is unparalleled. 
He is not content to draw upon the common reservoir of 
images which the mystics had at their disposal. He creates 
for himself, with endless patience and labour, metaphors 
which stamp him as a master both of language and of thought. 
To grasp the system of our mystic when he is attempting to 
express reality, it would be necessary to take these metaphors 
one by one, to compare and study them closely, to tone down 
the discrepancies they may show, and thus, by steady con- 
centration, to call forth the intuition behind their motley 
wrappings. An impossible task. The utmost that can be done 
is to bring them deliberately into an exposition of the doc- 
trine, and, with this object, to travel as far as possible along 
the paths they suggest. It would be real mutilation to dis- 
entangle too thoroughly the system from its allegorical 
clothing: the image adheres to it as does the skin to 


the flesh. 


The originality of Ruysbroeck, we have said, has largely 
consisted in the combination he has been able to effect 
between different philosophical elements—some coming 
from Scholastic Aristotelianism and the rest from Neoplaton- 
ism—and in permeating Christianity with this combination. 
By doing this he has truly been the man of the hour, another 
way of being original. In blending such different materials 
into one homogeneous doctrine he was obeying a necessity 
of history, and was reproducing in his own person a pheno- 
menon that had taken place ten centuries previously, though 
on a far greater scale. 

Then, Christianity was seen not simply to take the place 
of the ancient civilisation, as is generally imagined, but to 
become imbued with the resources which that civilisation 


DR OT TR OUR ee 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 299 


offered it, whilst retaining its own distinctive character. 
Consequently the new organism built up on the ruins of 
the ancient world had the singular good fortune of bringing 
together the religious inspiration of the Gospel and the soul 
of mysticism which Neoplatonism and the universalistic 
syncretism of the third century had awakened. We may say 
that this combination protected the new institution against 
materialism; it protected it alike against invading ritualism 
and the intellectualism of the scribes by safeguarding the 
independence of religious feeling. Right on to the sixteenth 
century, when the two elements became dissociated and 
resumed their own proper character, it was this combination 
that allowed the vista upon the infinite to be maintained. 
And it makes its appearance every time this issue threatens 
to become obstructed. 

No wonder, then, that we find the Christian mystics 
adopting this compromise. In the fourteenth century, beneath 
the urge of misery and of social aspirations, the world is 
carried along by a great impulse, as it were, towards God, 
towards a God it is possible to grasp and possess with all the 
intensity of human grief. To this universal aspiration the 
fallen Church could offer no issue. And in the intellectual 
domain, Scholasticism also, degenerating into mere logo- 
machy, was incapable of supplying the minds of men with 
the nourishment for which they asked. What could Aristotle 
do, in these times of inanition, with his fierce intellectualism, 
with his efficient cause, his final cause, his motionless God 
who knows nothing of things beneath him, his lesser virtues? 
Neoplatonism, on the other hand, with its religious morale, 
its God who increases in greatness according as man rises, 
its perfect Being such as we should like to be ourselves and 
to whom one is united by resembling him, was quite calcu- 
lated to raise man superior to himself, to release him from 
his slavery. 

But here lay the danger of which indeed the fourteenth 
century offered the most pitiable instances. When man was 
placed on the incline of mystical piety, was not this exposing 


300 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


him to fall away either into moral anarchy or into barren 
quietism, perhaps into both at once? Ruysbroeck anticipated 
these formidable possibilities by introducing a fourth element 
into his system: a practical morale. The agent of mystical 
union is not intelligence, but will; it is not speculation, 
but sanctification. | 

Perhaps Ruysbroeck had previously found the germ of 
this realism in the Neoplatonists, in Saint Augustine, in 
Saint Bernard, etc. But by resolutely directing mysticism 
towards action—common life, as he says—he was able to 
keep free of that excessive intellectualism which invariably 
exhausts life itself. There are few instances among philo- 
sophers of a like determination not to lose his footing, to 
keep in touch with the earth and with everyday life. And so 
his mysticism may equally be called a morale, a simple 
valiant morale which exempts men from none of the stages 
that lead to perfection. It believes that work is a sacred law, 
that to be a man is a hard and noble task, that evil is not a 
fatality to be passively borne, but an enemy to be fought. 
It does not resignedly think that sin is eternal; it allows that 
sin indeed exists in human nature by virtue of a grievous 
heritage, but it straightway declares, in ringing accents, 
that mankind is not a motionless reality, that it makes itself 
a little more, day by day, that it is in process of becoming, 
and that our highest expectations are yet no more than a 
faint symbol of what we shall eventually realise. There will 
never be an end of loving, hoping, serving; for the loftiest 
contemplation, by endowing us with new virtues, urges us 
on to ever fresh activities. 

The image, assuredly an original one, suggested by this 
rule of life is not the mystic ladder whose top is lost in the 
boundless heavens, but rather the gushing fountain which 
springs aloft, spreads around in wheatsheaf jets and falls 
back into the basin, whence it will again be propelled upwards 
in identical rhythmic motion. 

We see what a practical application Ruysbroeck was able 
to make of the Neoplatonist theory of the two movements, 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 301 


upwards and downwards. We also see how great was the 
stimulus he gave to piety and to life in general. Here, too, 
this supremacy of action brings Ruysbroeck nearer to our 
modern tendencies, which reject all intellectualistic orthodoxy 
and attach chief importance to an experimental proof that 
precedes the explanation. In postulating the perfect ade- 
quation of knowledge and being Ruysbroeck reverses the 
terms of the dogmatic aphorism: what one 1s worth depends 
on what one believes. He says: what one believes depends on 
what one 1s worth. And so once again his doctrine, in spite 
of being manifestly inadequate, is still a very modern one. 
Tantum homo habet de scientia quantum operatur. Man 
really knows only in so far as he acts. Offspring of a mechani- 
cal age, we have mostly to relearn, along with Saint Francis, 
Ruysbroeck, the masters of French thought, Descartes and 
Pascal, that he alone will know who has set himself free 
by rough bodily toil, that knowledge is subordinate to puri- 
fication, and that existence—we mean the whole of existence 
which is not imprisoned in the finite—is not “an immediate 
datum which is inevitable, but a problem which must be 
solved . . . a distant object to which we must attain.” ? 


IT 


If Ruysbroeck’s voice had not possessed an altogether 
new accent, if his doctrine had contained nothing original, 
it would be impossible to understand the extraordinary 
influence of our author. 

Truly great men are not so much innovators as intelligent 
interpreters of their times, healers of souls capable, in periods 
of wavering, of keeping a firm check on spiritual libertinism 
and moral anarchy, and of instilling renewed faith, mental 
sanity and human dignity. It is because Ruysbroeck lent 
his soul, like a huge conch, to the myriad voices of a dis- 
tracted age, and thrilled with every fibre of his being before 


1 J. Chevalier, Descartes (Paris, 1921), p. 344. 


302 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


all the storms that distressed men’s minds, that he roused 
such prolonged reverberations. The men of his age, and those 
who came after them, recognised themselves when they 
read this wonderful interpreter of their own wretchedness. 
But they also found a remedy in a call to true living and a 
beneficent spiritual discipline. Thus did Ruysbroeck and the 
school born of his thought contribute, more than others, to a 
spiritual quickening. Down to the sixteenth century, which 
stirred up new disciplines against the same weaknesses, 
practical mysticism—the documents are explicit in this 
matter—was one of the great reorganisers of thought and 
ethics. And in this work the influence of Ruysbroeck could 
not be over-estimated. 

From the fourteenth century, indeed, there is no intellec- 
tual centre which was not permeated with his doctrine. In 
1360 Ruysbroeck could truly say that his thought had 
travelled as far as the Alps. In effecting this propagation, 
unprecedented at the time, the Latin translation of Jordaens 
was an inestimable instrument, as was the version of Gérard 
de Groote, not so literary as, though perhaps even more pains- 
taking than, the other. There were other contemporary 
translations, but their authors have remained anonymous; 
no trace has ever been found of the translation of The 
Spiritual Marriage made by Thomas à Kempis, though 
strong testimony was given as to its existence down to the 
seventeenth century. 

It was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries more 
particularly that the renown of Ruysbroeck became really 
widespread: a fact which would seem to prove that the attacks 
of Gerson, repeated by Bossuet at the end of the grand siécle, 
had not the scope or importance one might be tempted to 
attribute to them. This age witnessed an imposing growth 
of translations. In Italy, in the year 1538, there appeared 
Latin translations of The Seven Degrees and of The Sparkling 
Stone, by an unknown author, dedicated to Nicolas Bar- 
gilesius, a priest of Bologna. In 1552 there appeared in 


1 Prologue of Frère Gérard, in Bijdragen, p. 14. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 303 


Germany the first edition of the famous translation by Surius, 
republished in 1608, 1609 and 1692, long extracts from which 
Louis de Blois included in his religious anthologies. 

Latin, however, in spite of being so widely known, was 
an obstacle to the introduction of Ruysbroeck’s thought 
into popular circles. The first translation of our mystic into 
the vulgar tongue was an Italian translation, edited in 
Venice in 1565 per M. Mambrino da Fabriano. At the be- 
ginning of the following century appeared a French trans- 
lation of The Spiritual Marriage, republished in Toulouse 
in 1619.1 Lastly, mention must be made of two German 
translations in 1621 and 1701, and a complete translation 
of the treatises of the prior of Groenendael into Spanish in 
1696. There were also important fragments of Ruysbroeck’s 
work which the writers of a vast number of treatises, in 
accordance with the spirit of the times, incorporated into 
their own works without mentioning their origin. 

Such abundant testimony shows that Ruysbroeck, up to 
and including the seventeenth century, was one of the most 
popular guides in spiritual living. 

This authority, especially in the seventeenth century, is 
largely based on the analogy then found to exist be- 
tween the religious situation and that we have described 
in the fourteenth century. On a smaller though equally dis- 
turbed stage, Groenendael had played a part but slightly 
different from that of Port-Royal and the Congrégation de 
POratoire.? This parallelism, striking enough when we study 
the environment, becomes singularly suggestive when we 
find such defenders of the spiritual order as Descartes and 
Malebranche draw in their turn upon the spring of Neopla- 
tonism which Ruysbroeck and his school had found so useful. 
As a matter of fact, in the combination which mystical 


1 The following is the exact title of this translation: L’Ornement des Nopose 
spiritvelles. Composé par le divin docteur et très excellent contemplateur Jeaan 
Rusbroche. Traduict en François per un Religieux Chartreux de Paris. Auec la 
vie de l’autheur à la fin du liure, 1606. A Tolose, Par la Vefue de J. Colomiés et 
R. Colomiés, imprimeurs ordinaires du Roy. Avec privilège de sa Majesté. 

2Cf. F. Strowski, Histoire du sentiment religieux en France au xvite siècle ; 
Pascal et son temps, t. I. pp. 12658. 


304. RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


thinkers had elaborated, piety had never been sacrificed to 
speculation, perfect equilibrium had been maintained between 
tradition and the foreign elements. 


This also explains why the line followed by Ruysbroeck’s 
influence is so different from the direction taken by the 
speculation of Meister Eckhart, though its philosophical 
origin is the same. 

Whereas the philosophy of Eckhart strips itself more and 
more of its Christian elements and stirs up the revived 
pantheism of Jacob Boehme and Schelling, of Hegel and 
Feuerbach, the mysticism of Ruysbroeck, starting from the 
same premises, determines a stream of thought infinitely 
warmer and more religious. With this stream must be con- 
nected the institution of the Frères de la Vie commune, 
destined to give birth to the finest book ever written by human 
hand, The Imitation of ‘Jesus Christ, and to the spiritual 
reform movement with which the congregation of Windesheim 
is associated. It is this stream of thought also that revives 
the languishing spirituality of the Franciscan order, through 
the writings of Henri Herphius, author of a Miroir de la 
perfection, almost a textual reproduction of The Spiritual 
Marriage. In all probability it also inspired the mysterious 
Theologia Germanica, thus preparing the ground for the 
Reformation. 7 

There can be no doubt regarding the Fréres de la Vie 
commune. We have spoken of the deep impression made 
upon Gérard de Groote by his visits to Groenendael. When 
in 1382, a year after Ruysbroeck’s death, Raynaud Minnen- 
bosch, or Munenbode, founded the monastery of the Saint 
Sauveur at Eemstein, Gérard de Groote obtained permission 
from Raynaud that the friars should follow the rule of Saint 
Augustine, after initiation by a professed priest of Groenen- 
dael, Godefroid Wevel. The same year Gérard decided to 


1 In his Chronicon Bethleemticum, Impens calls Ruysbroeck vena unde pro- 
cessit fons et inchoatio reformationis novae canonicorum regularium in his terris 


(cap. 1.). 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 305 


establish as a religious order the young scholars with whom 
he was living. Ad hunc ordinem regularium instituendum, 
says Thomas a Kempis, praecipue inductus fuit propter 
singularem reverentiam et amorem venerabilis domni Fohannis 
Rusebroec . . . et aliorum 1ibidem religiose conversantium 
probatissimorum fratrum in ordine regulari: quos dudum 
personaliter 1n Brabantia visitaverat, a quibus magnam aedt- 
ficationts formam ob multam ipsorum humuilitatem et simplicis 
habitus deferentiam traxit et annotavit1 Death prevented 
Gérard from realising his project, but the brothers who had 
heard him repeat his desire on his deathbed undertook to 
carry out his last wishes. Thus, in 1386, was founded the 
famous monastery of Windesheim, which was destined to 
have so profound an influence on the reformation of the 
morals of the clergy by the diffusion of the moderna devotio.? 
In the Netherlands, Ruysbroeck’s doctrines were spread 
abroad by the mystics of the association: Henric Mande, 
born in 1360, surnamed the Ruysbroeck of the North, who in 
his numerous works confines himself to reproducing the 
mysticism of our prior$ and Gerlach Peters, born in 1378. 
Windesheim’s main claim to glory, however, lies princi- 
pally in having sown the seed of the Renaissance by em- 
phasising the importance of culture allied to godliness. “It is 
impossible to find anywhere a more serious cause of distor- 
tion than in the neglect on the part of our contemporaries to 
add on to the study of literature and science, above all else, 
the practice of virtue and honesty of living.” These words 
of Jean Standonck express the whole work of the masters 
and pupils of the school. Amongst those of Deventer must be 
mentioned Nicolas de Cues, Longolius, the friend of Melanch- 
thon, and above all, Erasmus. Amongst those of Zwolle, Jean 
Wessel, surnamed Gansefort, the master of Reuchlin, to whom 
Luther rendered grateful testimony. In the world of education 
1 Vita Gerardi Magni, cap. xv. 
2 Ruysbroeck’s influence made itself also felt in France, especially in the 
monastery of Chateau-Landon, which was reformed after the model of Groenen- 


dael. Sanderus, Chor. Sacr. Brab., t. IT. p. 30. 
8 See Busch, Chron. Widnes., pp. 450 Ss. 


306 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


it is fitting to mention the names of Rodolphe Agricola, the 
chief promoter of the study of Greek, of Jean Standonck, 
rector of the University of Paris in 1485, of Ludwig Drin- 
genberg, rector of the Latin schools of Schlestadt in which 
were educated most of the creators of the German Renais- 
sance, and lastly of Jean Sturm, head of the University of 
Strasbourg. | 

We would seem to be very far from Ruysbroeck. Literary 
concerns have no place at all, so to speak, in the mind of our 
lowly prior; he little suspected the incomparable springs of 
intellectual culture of which the rich treasure-house of the 
works of antiquity consisted. And yet religious humanism 
proceeds from the same inspiration and answers the same 
end as does the work of Ruysbroeck. It is a vast pity for 
the degenerate, uncultured and wretched Church that finds 
expression in Ruysbroeck and stimulates the reformers of 
Windesheim. For corruption advances side by side with 
ignorance. Ruysbroeck, of a practical turn of mind, assails 
the former; the Fréres de la Vie commune, the latter. However 
different our forest-monk from the learned humanists of 
Deventer, Zwolle or Liége, none the less is he directly related 
to them, seeing that it was he who directed Gérard de Groote 
in his work of reform and that Windesheim was the em- 
bodiment of Gérard’s inspiration. 


Now that this link has been forged, can we regard Ruys- 
broeck as a precursor of the Reformation of the sixteenth 
century? 

There is too close a connection between human events 
for it to be possible to find at will more or less likely 
arguments in favour of this theory. One may doubtless 
bring forward the influence upon Luther of Jean Wessel, of 
whom the great reformer said: “If I had read his writings 
sooner, my enemies might believe that Luther has drawn 
solely upon Wessel’s works, so united is his mind with my 
own.” 1 But while Wessel teaches justification in terms that 

1 In Opera, édit. Walch, t. XIV. p. 220. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 307 


remind one of the doctrine of Luther,! his exposition, strongly 
imbued with Neoplatonism, is purely intellectual and does 
not go down into those depths of consciousness wherein the 
Saxon monk so long struggled. Again, it is possible to notice 
a certain similarity between Luther and another frere de 
la Vie commune, Johann Pupper de Goch, the author of 
De libertate christiana, a treatise in which attempts have 
been made to discover the central dogma of the Reformation,? 
without seeing that, in reality, Goch regarded justification 
as depending on merit. And so these instances do not seem 
adequate; at most they prove that the atmosphere in which the 
Reformation developed emanated largely from Windesheim. 
Still, there is the famous 7 heologia Deutsch, the mystical 
work of the anonymous Frankfirt writer. It is undoubtedly 
possible to see the influence of Ruysbroeck in this treatise 
which Luther edited, at first partially in 1516 and afterwards 
as a whole in 1518, after adding an enthusiastic preface. In 
his introduction Luther says that the doctrine of the anony- 
mous author “recalls that of the enlightened doctor Johannes 
Tauler.” But Tauler had been influenced by the hermit of 
Groenendael, and we think we have succeeded in proving 
that the mysterious Canclaer who came to visit Ruysbroeck 
in his hermitage and Tauler were one and the same individual. 
In addition, the doctrine of the 7 heologia Germanica is at 
least as reminiscent of the doctrine of Ruysbroeck as of that 
of Tauler. There is the same mysticism based on speculation, 
the same doctrine of the substantial unity of God and the 
world incessantly renewed by divine dynamism, the return 
of creation into the bosom of the Creator. As in Ruysbroeck, 
however, metaphysics is wholly subordinated to morality. 
The general tendency of the book is practical, above all else. 
We are acquainted with Luther’s testimony to the 
T heologia Germanica: “1 fear not to place this book alongside 
of the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine, for, more than 


1 See the texts in Ddllinger, La Réforme et son développement intérieur, trad. 
Perrot, t. IIT. p. 4. 
2 Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation (Gotha, 1886), 2 t. I. p. 92. 


308 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


any other book, it has taught me what God, Christ and 
man are.” And yet the reformer, whose mentality was so 
different from Neoplatonist speculation, was far from assimi- 
lating the entire doctrine of the anonymous writing. If he 
received inspiration thereby, he had previously purged it of 
its pantheistic elements. And if we find it in him, it is exclusively 
in his practical piety which looks upon happiness as harmony 
between the human and the divine will. Thus it is somewhat 
exaggerated to regard Luther as a disciple of the Frankfürt 
writer. The Commentary on the Psalms, which has been de- 
clared to be an application of the ideas of the Theologia 
Germanica to the sacred texts, can be traced back mainly to 
Saint Augustine. Luther’s doctrine is essentially his own; 
it is the spontaneous outcome of his conscience and his 
heartrending meditations. From 1512 to 1515 he may have 
nourished his emotions on the fervent godliness that runs 
through the Theologia Germanica; in any case his mind 
remained untainted by the pantheistic leaven which, a few 
years later, Calvin denounced as the “hidden venom” of 
German mysticism.! 

The necessity of a Church reform so strongly advocated 
by Ruysbroeck is an anxious task which he shares with the 
great founders of monastic orders, with Gregory VII., and 
with many a heterodox sect of the Middle Ages; it is insufh- 
cient to procure for him the title of pre-Reformer. Since the 
Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth—Spirit made for freedom— 
became incarnate in an institution, the best of men have 
never sided with the deviations to which it has been subjected. 
This Protestant stream traverses the whole of the Middle 
Ages, whether exercised within the Church or acting outside 
of traditional lines and occasionally, in strangely distorted 
form, superseding the Christian truth. Will it be alleged that 
it paves the way for the Reformation because Luther and 
Calvin also rose against the decline of the Church and the 
corruption of the clergy? Among the Reformers there was 
something more: a doctrine and a conception of Christian 

1 Lettves de Jean Calvin, édit. Bonnet, t. II. p. 250. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 309 


life which show how far removed they are from the piety 
of the Middle Ages, and more particularly from the 
speculative mystics. 


III 


To obtain a right estimate of the speculative mystics they 
must be seen in the historical conditions that gave them 
birth. In particular they ought to be studied in their true 
philosophical alignment. Then only is their doctrine found 
to possess its full emphasis, its sturdy originality so unjustly 
disregarded. 

We are still too much disposed to look upon mysticism 
as religious morbidity, manifesting as sentimental trickery 
and extravagance, and far removed from all genuine thinking. 
We do not deny that such vacuity of mind is but too frequently 
found in mystics. Still, should we ever have dreamed of raising 
Ruysbroeck from the dust in which he lay if we had had to 
pursue such vapourings? 

But if, on the contrary, mysticism is essentially the effort 
of the mind to grasp the infinite; if, more than all else, it is 
sincerity, intuition, interior freedom reacting against all 
formalism; if it outstrips the domain of extent and establishes 
itself at the heart of thought; if finally, in alliance with 
speculation, it is a continuation of Neoplatonism, and like 
this latter attempts to supply a philosophy of the intelligible, 
then it has a place of its own in the history of ideas. 

In our opinion this place has not been rightly fixed. From 
the studies on the Middle Ages that are now being made, we 
are justified in hoping that greater honour will be accorded 
to the speculative mystics than they have yet received from 
historians of philosophy, for they already appear before us, 
no longer as passive inheritors in whose hands a great tradi- 
tion has been made of none effect, but as initiators, pre- 
cursors of the present age. 

The specialised works of Pierre Duhem have already 
shown that the principles which modern science invokes go 

Z 


310 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


back farther than the days of Newton, Galileo and Copernicus. 
These works have stripped the Renaissance of its usurped 
pride and restored to the Middle Ages the honour of having 
given wings to experimental science. It would thus appear, 
in the light of the best authenticated texts, that the main 
features of our present knowledge of the ‘world must be 
sought for within the University of Paris in the fourteenth 
century. Buridan de Béthune, Albert de Saxe, Grégoire de 
Rimini, Nicole Oresme, bishop of Lisieux, Jean de Bassols 
and others are the true initiators of modern times. 

And now the history of philosophy, in attempting to 
discover the source whence flow the methods of thought 
that make up the modern mind, also passes beyond the 
grand siécle and the Renaissance, and tends to restore 
speculative mysticism. 

It is to this, indeed, that we can rightly trace the modern 
doctrines that set up the supremacy of mind and regard 
intuition and the inner life as legitimate means of investi- 
gation for attaining to immediate knowledge. And it is with 
Thomism, even more than with Descartes, that we must 
connect the second stream of modern thought: that which 
comprises the philosophies of pure reason.2 Now we have 
seen to what extent the doctrine of Ruysbroeck is imbued 
with Scholasticism. The result is that the two streams which 
cross our contemporary philosophy meet once more, blended 
though clearly discernible, in that strange intellectual 
phenomenon which goes under the name of speculative 
mysticism. 

Descartes, generally looked upon as the father of modern 
philosophy, is himself an heir, an inheritor of genius doubtless, 


1 Cf. A. Dufourcq, Le Christianisme et l'organisation féodale (Paris, 1911); id., 
Les origines de la science moderne d’après les découvertes vécentes, in Revue des 
Deux Mondes (15 July, 1913), pp. 349 ss. 

P. Duhem, Études sur Léonard de Vinci (Paris, I. 1906; II. 1909); L'évolution 
de la mécanique (1903); Les origines de la statique (1905); Le système du monde, 
histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a Copernic, etc. 

* Apart from Picavel, see E. Gilson, La doctrine cartésienne de la liberté 
et la théologie (Paris, 1913); Index scolastico-cartésien (1913); Le thomisme, intro- 
duction au système de S. Thomas d'Aquin (1920); Etudes de philosophie médiévale 


(1920), pp. 1-124. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 311 


one who in many ways was able to give ultimate form to the 
material provided by tradition, though finally a transmitter, 
an arranger as much as, and even more than, an innovator. 
We shall certainly grieve impenitent Cartesians by dealing 
thus with the great methodologist who, like some towering 
peak, seemed to divide the world of thought into two slopes: 
one of shade, the other of light. 

Still, we do not think we have done anything to disparage 
his incomparable glory, and, to shelter from the indignation 
of his enthusiastic disciples, we can but take refuge behind 
his own words: “I am by no means,” he says, “of the nature 
of those who desire that their opinions should appear new; on 
the contrary, | adapt my own opinions to those of others, in 
so far as truth allows me to do so.” } 

What are these “opinions,” and who are these “others”? 
Once this point is settled, we shall see that the genius of 
Descartes was employed not so much in assuming a personal 
initiative as in grouping together and revivifying, by a new 
method, the elements he found in the mystical and Neo- 
platonist tradition of the Middle Ages. 


What indeed is it that Descartes seeks? The story of the 
famous night of the roth of November 1619, when Des- 
cartes saw flash before him the rudiments of his method, 
informs us? This is absolute certainty, in conformity with the 
essence of things and with the immediate vision which the 
soul, gua exclusive agent of the mental processes, can obtain 
thereof. Thus Descartes purposes to set up his fixed centre 
in the transcendental region of first principles. And so, even 
at the very start, our philosopher meets with mystics who 
also take up their stand in the infinite or the perfect. To reach 
this central position, however, there is much to be done. 
From periphery to centre stretch several concentric circles 
which must be crossed one after another. 

In the first place, the mind, meditating upon itself, 


1 Letive du 2 mat, 1644 (Œuvres, édit. Adam et Tannery, Paris, 1897-1910, 
SOLVE. 113) 
2 Adrien Baillet, Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes (Paris, 1691), t. I. p. 84. 
Z2 


312 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


recognises that it has no power of itself to see direct. It 
apprehends the world only through a medium or a reflection. 
It finds itself “darkened and blinded, as it were, by the 
images of sense-objects.” Its experience is that the thoughts 
which come to it are not immediately impressed by reality, 
but consist of alien intruders. As a rule we think with the 
opinions of others; the mechanism of thought has taken 
the place of original thought, which, in its pure form, is 
reached by the contemplation of reality itself. Thus it is 
indispensable to free oneself from the second-hand or dubious 
opinions, the false reasons and prejudices with which, as its 
heritage, the mind finds itself burdened. As Descartes says, 
we must “lay aside those old and ordinary opinions to which 
their long and familiar acquaintance with me give the right 
to occupy my mind against my will.” 1 

In like manner we must supersede the testimony of the 
senses, which are evidently deceptive, seeing that the data 
they supply are either illusory—such as the pain a man feels 
in a limb that has been amputated—or erroneous, since 
distance, for instance, modifies, to our eyes, the height of a 
tree or the form of a house. 

Reason itself, that instrument of discursive processes, 
cannot be considered perfectly pure; two mathematicians, 
for instance, may deduce different solutions from the same 
data. As regards all the things that appeal to the mind, if we 
make an experiment of this kind, in the last analysis the 
subjective reality will always be found to be elusive, and, in 
Pascal’s words, it will be seen that “the final stage of reason 
is the recognition that there is an infinity of things which 
transcend reason.” ? 

Such is the doute méthodique whereby Descartes pro- 
visionally calls in question the ideas supplied by reason, 
sense testimony and opinion. Here there is neither scepticism 
nor deliberate negation, but a discipline of which the mystics 
had already made use and which, in its negative form, is 


1 Méditation Ire (Œuvres, édit. Adam-Tannery, t. XX. p. 17). 
* Pensées, édit. Havet, art. xiii. 1; t. I. p. 192. 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 313 


essentially positive, seeing that it aims “at flinging back the 
shifting earth and the sand in order to find the rock or the 
clay ... at seeing if after that there should not remain some- 
thing altogether indubitable.” 1 

When the thinker has thus made tabula rasa, does he find 
himself confronted with absolute nonentity? No, for he 
discovers within himself zanate ideas which he has received 
from no one, which reason has not worked out, which are 
universal and self-imposed on the understanding. Among 
these ideas is the inborn knowledge that men possess of God. 
Consequently the sincere man is compelled to recognise 
that he is connected with a Reality that transcends him in 
all directions, the intelligent cause and origin of all things. 
Now innatism or exemplarism constitutes the very centre 
of the doctrine of the speculative mystics, who had obtained 
it from Saint Augustine and from Neoplatonism. By estab- 
lishing it in their own system they had openly broken with 
Saint Thomas, who had been strongly opposed to this doctrine.? 

The existence of God, then, as principle, is for Descartes 
the first and the fundamental certainty. There is another 
closely connected with it. Descartes, as we have just seen, 
before reconstructing on new bases, destroyed everything 
by the aid of methodic doubt. But by what instrument did 
he effect this process? By thought. Consequently the fact 
of thinking could not take place apart from a really indepen- 
dent personality whose existence is actually manifested by 
intellectual processes. 

Such is the meaning of the famous cogito ergo sum. 
“Whilst I thus willed to think that all was false, I, who was 
thinking it, was necessarily obliged to be something.” ® 
Now in the vast desert which Descartes has just created by 
his provisional doubt, this “something” cannot be other 


1 Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison (Œuvres, t. VI. pp. 29, 31). 
Cf. Ruysbroeck, The Spiritual Marriage, book I. chapters xxx., xxxi.; book II. 
chapter xxxii.; The Sparkling Stone, chapter ii. 

2‘ Intellectus quo anima intelligit, non habet aliquas species naturaliter 
inditas.’’ Summa, 1.4 quaest. Ixxxiv. art. 3. 

3 Discours de la méthode (Œuvres, t. VI. p. 32). 


314. RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


than a reality absolutely independent of external things, as 
detached from the body as from the limitations implied by 
ordinary reasoning. Alongside of God, thought — distinct 
from reason—thus appears as a second and indubitable 
reality, as the very principle of life. And this second and 
indubitable reality at the same time supplies us with indubit- 
able information as to the nature of God: God is Thought, 
Mind, for the more cannot come from the less. Human thought 
is a flame lighted from the great torch of Deity. 

Descartes found this doctrine, in the amazing develop- 
ment he gave to it, only in Neoplatonist mysticism, where it 
had already assumed a strangely consistent form, especially 
in the works of Meister Eckhart and of Ruysbroeck.1 

The corollary of the proposition is naturally that soul, 
the seat of thought, dependent on the infinite, is wholly 
distinct from body, dependent on space. Body indeed is not 
necessary—whereas thought is adequate and necessary— 
for man’s being. This is the doctrine of the root distinction 
between soul and body, a doctrine that has had so great an 
influence upon modern philosophy. First, thought exists; 
then, matter is given in addition, and strictly the material 
world could exist only as a mental picturing? 

Not, however, that the body is quite unprovided with all 
means of knowledge; there is a very special intelligence, an 
animal knowledge, evidence of which may occasionally agree 
with the information supplied by the soul. In addition, the 
perceptions of the soul may be influenced by the corporeal 
perceptions. But it is the soul alone that thinks and wills. 
We also find this theory dealt with at length by our mystics. 
Three centuries before Descartes, they posited the soul as 
a substance, a complete being, really distinct from—and 
capable of existing without—the body. They too regarded 
the body as a kind of particular intellection, an inferior 

1Cf. The Spiritual Marriage, book II. chapter ii.; The Kingdom, chapter v.; 
The Mirror, chapter viii.; The Twelve Beguines, chapters xxxi., xxxii. 

On the sources of the Cartesian doctrine, see L. Blanchet, Les antécédents 


historiques du “Je pense, donc je suis”? (Paris, 1920), pp. 25 ss. 
? H. Bergson, La Philosophie, p. 6. 


aa 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 315 


representative of the mental processes. Thus, like Descartes, 
they distinguished between two kinds of memory: the one, 
which retains the traces of material things and is nothing 
else than the faculty of recalling; the other, the higher memory 
or recognition, directed towards God and the eternal realities. 
Like Descartes also, they gave special emphasis to the will 
among the mental powers, thus ushering in the modern 
philosophies of free-will. 


The link between Descartes and mysticism, however, is 
found above all in their common theory of knowledge con- 
sidered as a vision. To know is to see. Vision or intuition 
precedes deduction: the whole of knowledge is reducible to 
these two successive processes. 

The term intuition may give rise to confusion. It is 
generally regarded as a presentiment, the faint glimpse of a 
truth that passes rapidly before the mind. Descartes takes 
the word strictly in its etymological sense: the clear, direct 
immediate vision of truths which, to be grasped, do not need 
the intermediary of reasoning. It is thought planting itself 
at the heart of reality and contemplating it, with every image 
stripped away. 


Intuitive knowledge [explains Descartes] is an illumination of the mind 
whereby it sees in the light of God the things it pleases him to lay bare 
before it by direct impression of divine enlightenment upon our under- 
standing, which in this is not regarded as an agent, but only as receiving 
the rays of Deity? 

Might we not think we were here listening to the specu- 
lative mystics when they speak of contemplation in naked- 
ness of images? Their conception, whole and undistorted, 
has passed into Descartes. In the voice of the geometrician- 
philosopher we hear, amazed, the echo of Ruysbroeck’s 
voice singing of interior freedom, of the power to 
rise to God without images or shackles by every interior practice, Super- 
seding reason, we ought to enter into God with faith, and remain there 


1 Cf. Ruysbroeck, The Kingdom, chapter v.; Descartes, Lettre au P. Mesland, 
2 mai, 1644 (Œuvres, t. IV. p. 114); J. Chevalier, Descartes, pp. 233, 245. 

? Lettre au marquis de Newcastle, 1648 (Œuvres, t. V. p. 136); quoted by 
Chevalier, op. cit., p. 172. 


316 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


simply, stripped and free of images. Then, in our mind, released from all 
activity, we receive that incomprehensible brightness . . . which is nothing 
else than boundless contemplation! 


Though to this conception Descartes added developments 
revealing his great originality, though he adapted it to his 
geometrical conception of the world, though he widened 
its province by his personal theories on analysis and synthesis 
in elaborating a complete philosophy of the intelligible, it 
is none the less true that the Neoplatonists and the specu- 
lative mystics had entered before himself into the world of 
spirit and described—as far as language could depict— 
uncontrovertible experiences. 

It is really unjust to regard these experiences as valid 
only through the Méditations métaphysiques of Descartes, 
and yet to discredit them in mystics by attributing them to 
some morbid illumination or other. An equitable estimate 
of the doctrines will assuredly correct this judgment; even 
now a study of the origins of Cartesian thought has clearly 
determined the relation that exists between Descartes and 
the mystical tradition. 


Who indeed are those “others” whose participation in 
the formulation of his doctrine Descartes has acknowledged, 
unless they be the Christian heirs of Neoplatonism? We must 
not forget that Scholasticism, with which Descartes was 
thoroughly acquainted, was quite as much permeated with 
Neoplatonism as with Aristotelianism.? And we must remem- 
ber that, long before the seventeenth century, the authority 
of Saint Thomas was not so universally recognised as it is 
supposed to be, and that the Jesuits, for the purpose of 
refuting him, did not fear to appeal to Neoplatonism, as 
filtered through Saint Augustine. Thus, at the famous 
Collége de la Fléche, where Descartes studied philosophy 
in 1609, the teaching of Suarez, infinitely nearer to Neo- 


1 The Sparkling Stone, chapters ii., ix. 

* The only two books that Descartes took with him to Holland were the 
Bible and the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Lettre de 25 décembre, 1639 
(Œuvres, t. II. p. 630). 


ORIGINAL ELLY GAN DEDNELUENCGE 317 


platonism than to Aristotelianism, had in effect supplanted 
that of Saint Thomas.t But it was chiefly the foundation of 
the Congrégation de l’Oratoire by the Cardinal de Bérulle 
that, under the auspices of Saint Augustine, secured the pre- 
dominance of Neoplatonism in the thought of the seven- 
teenth century. The undissembled aim of this foundation 
is well known. Frivolity, scepticism and corruption, under 
the general name of libertinage, gravely menaced the Christian 
tradition. A languid religious sentiment degenerated into 
barren sentimentality or was content to be a shallow opti- 
mistic prudhomie, regarding everything as for the best in 
the best of all worlds. In fact, decked out in the spoils of 
Stoicism, cynically denying or scornfully disinterested, 
libertinage was nothing else than atheism. Then, under the 
inspiration of the Cardinal de Berulle, there came into being 
a new school, happy to find in Neoplatonism, with its doc- 
trines of immediate vision and exemplarism, decisive argu- 
ments for confounding sceptical libertines. Was it indeed 
possible to deny a God vouched for by irrefutable intellectual 
experience, a God who was in man, as innate idea, just as 
the spark is in the flint? 

Descartes, like the Oratorians, has but one object: to 
confute atheism. He desires but one thing: to prove God 
and make him apprehensible to the human mind. And so 
we find that he keeps in close touch with the Oratorians. 
He chooses Bérulle in person as spiritual director; he greatly 
appreciates the book of the school systematist, Gibieuf, 
author of a treatise on the freedom of God and of the creature. 
He joins with Jean de Silhon, who in the Deux Vérités had 
brought together a veritable Neoplatonist arsenal against 
atheists, and also with Mersenne, another Neoplatonist who 
subsequently became his correspondent and philosophical 
confidant. 

Such were the men of whom Descartes saw a great deal 


1E. Gilson, Etudes de philosophie médiévale, pp. 166, etc. On Suarez, see 
Lechner, Die Erkenntnislehre des Suarez, in Philos. Jahrbuch, bd. xxv. pp. 125-50. 
? Lettre à Marsenne, octobre, 1631 (Œuvres, t. I. p. 220). 


318 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


between 1626 and 1628, a period when he was combining 
and assimilating material for thought. Fully equipped, in 
this latter year he betook himself to Holland, there to find 
the solitude necessary for the compiling of his great work. 
There also he was to meet with the Neoplatonist tradition 
which the speculative mystics had inherited. At Deventer in 
particular he must have encountered the influence of Ruys- 
broeck and the Vie Commune movement, the tradition of which 
had been kept alive. What wonder, then, that the Méditations 
métaphysiques, as we have seen, were inspired by those lofty 
mystical speculations which had supplied spiritual nourish- 
ment to the whole of the Middle Ages? Or that these specu- 
lations, adopted at the same time by the Augustinians of 
the Oratoire, Thomassin, Du Hamel, Ambrosius Victor and 
particularly Malebranche, supplied through them some of 
the principles on which our modern philosophy is based? 


IV 


As a rule biographers are blamed for unduly exaggerat- 
ing the importance of their hero, for seeing the world only 
through him. A man of second- or third-rate importance thus 
finds himself, as the result of a blind exclusive affection, 
raised to the level of a master or a saint. 

We will not ruin our historical perspective by such puerile 
complaisance. The place held by Ruysbroeck in the history 
of ideas is sufficiently honourable for us to feel no obligation 
to regard him as the ancestor of modern philosophy. On the 
other hand, however, historical justice and a true estimate of 
intellectual values will not allow us to leave our thinker in 
the shade to which historians, ever since the eighteenth cen- 
tury, have relegated him. We wish for him: 


Ni cet excès d'honneur ni cette indignité, 
but only a little of the gratitude due to the dead. 


In this restitution of esteem we are not thinking of 
Ruysbroeck alone, but of the whole of speculative mysticism 


ie a ee me 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 3109 


as it appeared in the fourteenth century. To show that it is 
not so distant from us as one is pleased to imagine, we should 
like, in these few closing remarks, to unravel the characteristic 
features of the doctrine, to compare them with the general 
trend of contemporary thought, and so to prove that in 
many respects this thought has indeed advanced along the 
lines of mystical speculation. 


The first thing that strikes one in the doctrines of the 
past thirty years is a justified depreciation of positive science, 
hitherto regarded as a full and complete explanation of the 
phenomena of life. Whether we reflect on the mechanistic 
psychology of Taine and Stuart Mill, or read again the 
passionate pages of Renan on the future of science, we see 
what intellectual pride stirred the men of the generation 
preceding our own. Science appeared to them as alone 
capable of producing a philosophy co-extensive with life; 
nothing existed which could not immediately be verified, 
weighed or numbered. Before such pride, mystery vanished 
like the mists of the morn, and metaphysics, like religion, 
went to join the ancient idolatries in the hypogea of the past. 

It soon appeared, however, that science, notwithstanding 
its claims, really affected only a part of life, the surface-film 
which masks and conceals the deep realities. The penetration 
line of science snapped just where its vision and its instru- 
ments could go no farther. Beyond lay mystery, a vast region 
that grew in extent the more one thought one had encroached 
upon it. 

“We are decidedly tired of hearing ‘Reason’ invoked in 
solemn and tender accents, as though merely to write the 
revered name with a big capital R provided a magical solution 
for all problems.” This phrase of Le Roy well expresses 
the mental state of the?psychological school which succeeded 
scientific rationalism. Not that this school—inaugurated 
nearly a century previously by Maine de Biran—denied the 
legitimacy of science as a means of knowledge. But it could 
not admit that science should be the one and only mode of 


320 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


knowledge. Hence the anti-intellectualistic stream which 
still carries us along, and, like the glowing fires of the dawn 
on some inviolate mountain-top, throws a dazzling brilliancy 
on to the summits of life itself. In various modes, though 
combining in one uniform direction, such thinkers as Ravais- 
son, Lachelier, Boutroux, Bergson and Le Roy have regarded 
the human mind as capable of aiming at the heart and centre 
of things, of attaining the absolute, and, in fugitive flashes 
at least, of glimpsing that one eternal essence from which 
the universe originates in all its amazing complexity. 

This position, as we see, is that of the speculative mystics. 
But the analogy does not stop at the origin; it continues into 
the various developments of the doctrine. Modern thinkers, 
indeed, on unifying the results of interior observation and 
the data supplied by clinical psychology, were led to super- 

sede the intellect, to reduce its operations to the rôle of a 
mere interpreter, and finally to establish the existence of a 
mental substance extending beyond the brain in all directions. 
This substance, the Mind, gives us indications regarding 
itself which are passed on like waves. The delicate antennæ 
of the brain perceive and interpret them, perfectly or im- 
perfectly according as the receiver is in good or bad condition. 
But in any case the intelligence, by which term we mean the 
cerebral activity, can supply nothing original; it is but a 
camera obscura in which the universe is reflected, a sensitive 
plate registering an impression. 

This being so, how are we to come in direct contact with 
this generating Mind? Here contemporary psychologists of 
the school of Bergson introduce a doctrine of the intelligible, 
which, as we have already seen, bears a remarkable relation 
to the views of the mystics. 

Kant, who also had endeavoured to attain to pure reason, 
really came to a halt before a static conception of intelligence. 
His pure reason is motionless intelligence, localised on one 
particular subject which, so to speak, has modelled and 
moulded it after its own nature, and which, instead of re- 
ceiving indications from a generating-station external to 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 321 


itself, itself projects ideas outside of itself. It is easy to see 
what this idealism is capable of achieving: are the universe, 
God, the soul—offshoots of reason—anything more than 
illusions? This deceptive philosophy could produce nothing 
but a monstrous pride which, in no slight degree, has con- 
tributed to drive humanity downhill to catastrophe. 

Modern French philosophy, on the contrary, starts with 
actual intelligence. It says that “idea is an arrest of thought,” 1 
and that original information on reality must be sought 
beyond the successive forms which the primitive perception 
of reality has mentally assumed. This is a return to the stand- 
point of pure contemplation which, as we have seen, Ruys- 
broeck and other mystics regarded as knowledge superior 
to intelligence. Beyond symbol, terminology, acquired ideas, 
the usual forms of analytical and discursive thought, and 
the other representations which mystics call “images,” the 
mind comes truly to see things in their essential reality. It 
breaks the intellectual crust under which—like water under 
ice—flows life in its primal limpidity. 

The method, then, of attaining to intuition is a disburden- 
ing, a purification, a throwing off. It is the érdwors of Plotinus, 
the xé@apo1s of the Pseudo- Dionysius, the elimination of 
images (phantasma) of Saint Augustine and Ruysbroeck, the 
provisional doubt of Descartes, i.e. detachment from the outer 

world which vitiates our perceptions of its impress. This 
work of purification, when accomplished, can alone give us 
virginal freshness of vision, the direct sensation of reality.? 
It places us at the heart of things; in mystic parlance, it 
stablishes us in God. This is the return to the immediate. 

Now, what is the revelation here given to us? That 
fundamentally the universe is movement and life. We must 
henceforth abandon the static idea of a finished edifice. 
Creation goes on endlessly, by virtue of an initial movement 

1H. Bergson, Mind Energy, p. 4 

* See H. Bergson, Time and Free Will, p. 132 and conclusion; Matter and 
Memory, Preface and p. 118; Laughter : An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, 


pp. 150-61; and especially I ntroduction ala métaphysique, in Revue de Métaphysique 
et de Morale, janvier, 1903. 


322 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


which, with infinite profusion, indefatigably engenders 
new forms and manifests itself on this globe of ours by 
the evolution of species and the constitution of human 
personalities.1 

This powerful dynamism also had been glimpsed by the 
mystics. Doubtless they conceived of it under the aspect 
of a circuit starting from God and returning to God, first 
dragging creation along in a descending movement and then 
urging it onward with vigorous impetus up the ascending 
arc. Evolutionist philosophy, with biology as its teacher, 
does not look upon things quite so simply. According to it, 
the development of life has not taken place along one uniform 
line; it has encountered obstacles and has split up; retro- 
gression has set in; some of the very currents which it has 
set going have stopped and become motionless. All the same, 
some faint suggestion of this conception of the living universe 
is found clearly defined in the works of our mystics, as is also 
the consequence that springs therefrom: man forming an 
integral part of this vast scheme of things whose first reason 
and whose end are in God. “Like eddies of dust raised by the 
wind as it passes, the living turn upon themselves, borne up 
by the great blast of life.” ? 

It follows from this that modern philosophy is not far 
from reinstating the idea of survival. After establishing the 
independence of mind and matter, after, showing that we 
are completely laved in a mind-atmosphere which is the 
primal source of all our perceptions, that the brain interprets 
only what passes through the consciousness, it can but 
thereby deduce for the personality the conclusion that it 
is immortal, 
for the only reason one can have for believing in the extinction of con- 
sciousness at death is that we see the body become disorganised, that this 
is a fact of experience and the reason loses its force if the independence of 


almost the whole of consciousness with regard to the body has been shown 
to be also a fact of experience. 


1H. Bergson, Creative Evolution, chapter il. 
? [bid., p. 134; pp. 285-6. 
* H. Bergson, Mind-Energy, p. 59. 


ORIGINALITY: AND INFLUENCE 323 


Let us listen reverently to these solemn accents which 
thrill the inmost fibres of the soul and are so manifestly 
attuned to the mystic song of triumph on the threshold of 
the infinite. 

Not to leave our task unfinished, we must also remember 
the practical value of modern philosophy. With deliberate 
purpose it tends towards life from all directions. In its 
attempt ever to bring thought within the scope of will and 
of action, not only does it widen the province of the lofty 
teachings of Maine de Biran, the great initiator of the philo- 
sophies of the soul, but it also finds itself once again in accord 
with the profound thought of Ruysbroeck. To him and to 
modern philosophy alike, the masterpiece of the mind is a 
great and noble human life, a life carved out in matter as a 
statue is in stone. 

If the universe is traversed by a dual stream of force 
—one part descending to constitute materiality, the other 
part ascending in the direction of spirit—the upright man 
deliberately steps into the latter. Evil is fall and retro- 
gression, both in the moral and in the cosmic order of 
things. Good is the ascent towards the light. Consequently 
“the men of moral grandeur... are revealers of metaphysical 
truth. Although they are the culminating point of evolution, 
yet they are nearest the source and they enable us to perceive 
the impulsion which comes from the deep.” 1 Similarly, as 
_we have seen, it is in good deeds that the doctrine of Ruys- 
broeck culminates. Reaching the peak of contemplation, 
like Moses that of the burning mountain, he again comes 
down to the plains, having discovered that God summons 
men not to inaction, but to the daily task; that in goodness 
there dwells a might invincible, and that the final inter- 
pretation of life is to be found in the word “ effort.” ? 


When we began this book, mankind was staggering, 
stunned and exhausted, to its feet. after such carnage as 


1 [bid., p. 25. ? The Seven Degrees, chapter xiv. 


324 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


the world had never before witnessed. The lurid glare of the 
vast conflagration, stretching from the Vosges to the sea, 
had revealed to us the meaning and significance of the un- 
speakable catastrophe which almost destroyed the whole 
of our Latin heritage. The voice of the cannon howled and 
shrieked—a fitting expression of those doctrines of force 
indicative of our scientific and philosophical materialism. An 
exclusively mechanical civilisation, one that excludes the 
spirit, removes God with a stroke of the pen, replaces 
metaphysics with physics and regards as illusions the sublime 
realities of the spirit, has brought itself to the very edge of 
the abyss. This is but too evident. 

On the other hand, a certain mode of living—which it is 
heartrending to find so prevalent nowadays—cannot but 
lead to ruin also. Subjection to the needs of the body, 
enjoyment set up as an idol, contempt for disinterested 
work, and above all, that ignoble materialism of money 
which corrupts all relations between human beings: these 
are so many departures from that divine Order wherein 
Plotinus saw salvation. Notwithstanding the long and precious 
spiritual tradition behind us, we seem to have lost recollec- 
tion of that divine order, or at all events to have become 
incapable of examining it fully. 

This saving economy for which a Jesus of Nazareth 
sacrificed himself—a vision which all down the ages has 
raised up a countless procession of apostles and martyrs— 
is, in a word, the supremacy of the Spirit. 

There is a higher life whereby man is related to his source 
and origin—the channel which brings strength to his arms 
and love into his heart. This life, however, is not offered us 
along with the other. No school, no church has a monopoly 
of it. It is learned as the result of prolonged and laborious 
effort; it calls for stern sacrifices. But without it our surest 
impetus turns aside or stops altogether, our thought grasps 
but the semblance of things, our love and tenderness expire 
with those we lay in the tomb. 

Much is said nowadays of a full and integral life, of the 


ORIGINALITY AND INFLUENCE 325 


cult of personality. The spiritual life alone is capable of 
drawing from us the riches buried in the human soul; it 
alone pledges our complete development, and that through 
a single human example, whether as hero, thinker or 
saint, manifesting human dignity and worth raised to its 
highest point. 

Such is the ultimate significance of Ruysbroeck’s doc- 
trine, set in its true alignment. Whatever differences may 
seem to exist between this doctrine and our own mode of 
thought, the springs that nourished it and upon which we 
still draw are the same. For if we are to live humanly, we 
can no more dispense with the noble inspirations of Græco- 
Latin antiquity than with the Gospel itself. Besides, in many 
respects this teaching presents such striking correspondences 
with modern thought that, behind the incomparable lan- 
guage of our mystic, it sometimes appears as though we 
were listening to the halting accents of our contemporary 
philosophy of the spirit. 

At all events, whether the doctrine rouse in us feelings 
of adherence or of reserve, this at least is certain: it stimu- 
lates thought. It brings us back from the state of dispersion in 
which we are living, right to the centre of the self. It reawakens 
the sense of mystery, of the divine. As we read these simple, 
artless books, studded with metaphors, something whispers 
to us that the soul’s experience contained in these pages is 
valid for ourselves, certainly capable of being put in force 
once more. 

We feel that the old mystic is speaking the truth when he 
proclaims with quiet assurance: “It is the infinite, the perfect, 
on which our souls are nourished.” Then we momentarily 
forget the material cares and anxieties of life, and listen to 
this clear message ringing and expanding within us, like the 
vibrations of a fundamental tone. 

To live a good life we must have a fixed centre in the 
invisible. Could but these pages, devoted to a long-forgotten 
fourteenth-century monk, at least point someone in the direc- 
tion of that invisible which laves and envelops us all the time, 


326 RUYSBROECK THE ADMIRABLE 


we should not regret the labour expended in writing them. For 
the only way to acknowledge the debt of gratitude we owe 
to the masters of thought is to think ourselves, seeing that 
the whole of human dignity and worth also lies in the order 
of thought. 


FINIS 


Maor At THR V9 
TEMPLE PRESS olf LETCHWoPTH 
SAA in GREAT BRITAIR 


it 
* 


awe A 1 4 1» ie 
ay . a Le 2 A Mat 7 

À LAON Ah UN 
ROME k 

i RS: MEN 





Na) 
PU 
21 Je À Rs 
ALAIN AR 
wee 
“4 


« hips 1 








Date Due 












| 


| 


Il 


| 


il 


Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Librar 


Ÿ 
N 
WN 
N 
(e @) 
oO 
© 
eed 
© 
N 
said 
© 
v— 
T— 





